


Metamorphosis in the Age of Secret Identities

by hanwritesstuff (hannahkannao)



Series: MitAoSIverse [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 21:51:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 42,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4237875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannahkannao/pseuds/hanwritesstuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I wanna live like I lost the script<br/>And scream every line like<br/><i>This is it</i></p><p>In which Yamaguchi Tadashi can't control his superpowers, plays a thirty-two-race round of Mario Kart Wii, has somewhere around twenty cameras in his face at once, almost believes he isn't good enough, and discovers that he'll always be good enough to everyone who matters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue - Two Months Ago

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: 12/13/15 - Redoing the opening notes since I've finished this fic! To be completely honest, this was one of the first things I wanted to do once I entered this fandom. Like I read a superpower AU right before the end of the school year last year and I was like "omg I wanna do _that_ " so I started writing this on a plane and I really never turned back. It changed a lot since that first plane draft (I still have the notebook) but I really loved writing this and kind of obsessed over it and I'm kind of still obsessing now that I'm writing a sequel. Whoopsie daisy. Also, the summary comes from Theatre by Icon For Hire (which doesn't fit this fic until around chapter six, and even then it's a stretch) which I'd recommend listening to just because it's a good song, I guess.
> 
> Anyway, enough about my rambling! Comments, kudos, and the like are always appreciated, and I hope you all enjoy! <3

It was the end of Sawamura Daichi's second year of high school, and there was more ending than just the high school lives of the graduating third-years. Everyone and their second-cousins were sitting on their couches, eyes glued to the TV.

Daichi was no different than everyone else, sitting on his couch next to his best friend, Sugawara Koushi, who was completely silent in concentration on what was going on up on the screen. They hadn't said a word to each other since they'd turned on the TV almost ten minutes ago. This was too important to miss even a second of it.

A man and a woman were both walking down a flight of stairs, seemingly hundreds of microphones and video cameras pushed in their faces. They looked to be about in their mid-forties to early fifties, and they both had brown hair, the woman's down to her shoulders and the man's starting to disappear. They were both dressed up for the occasion, in fairly formal wear; the man was wearing a suit with a dark blue tie, and the woman was wearing a black dress that went a little ways past her knees, accompanied by a strand of pearls around her neck. Their eyes were both covered by masks, the kind you'd find at masquerade balls.

This interview was just as important for the rest of the prefecture as it was for the two people on screen - the superheroes protecting Miyagi Prefecture were retiring, and this was their final press conference before whatever came next.

Yes, actual superheroes. It was sometimes hard for Daichi to believe that the characters he'd seen in the cartoons he watched as a kid actually had real-life counterparts, but it got easier every time he'd seen them on the news. They'd been around his whole life, and he'd probably seen them at least a hundred times on TV in the seventeen years he'd been alive. He'd even seen them in person once, when he was nine or ten.

And the best part was that they were just as cool as the superheroes he'd seen in all the fiction he'd ingested over the course of his childhood. They had flashy powers, cool costumes, the whole nine yards. On the rare occasion they got paid for their work - they usually denied the money - they gave most, if not all, of it to charity. Originally, the man was supposed to be the woman's sidekick, and according to Daichi's parents, they used to have that kind of relationship before Daichi was born. But eventually, the two of them both became mutually powerful and equally famous, building on each other and becoming the fan-named Miyagi Duo the people all loved.

When he'd seen them in person, they'd been stopping some kind of monster that was attacking the store right by his elementary school. His parents had just picked him up from school, and they were the third in a long line of cars that had been stopped by all the action. Daichi had rolled down the window all the way and had leaned out of the car, mesmerized by all the lasers lighting up the overcast afternoon sky.

And then they were there, flying through the sky in almost symmetrical formations, shooting lasers and running faster than was humanly possible. And they apparently had even more powers than that, the ones Daichi had seen on TV when they were showing fights live.  After it was all over, they'd both flown down to give all the kids on the street high fives, Daichi included. It was scary, but it was also the coolest thing he'd ever experienced.

He'd known they were retiring a while back, almost two years ago now when he'd started his first year. That press conference was almost as important as this one. That time, the world had met the next generation of the Miyagi Duo. The new generation was made up of the child of the older duo as well as somebody else that Daichi didn't remember. The key was that they were young, only about Daichi's age or a little older.

Knowing that had practically gotten Daichi through his first year of high school. Knowing that there were people his age doing more good than he could ever hope to was strange, sure, but he had looked up to them immensely. They hadn't really talked to the public at all - the old duo had said their son was very shy in the interview announcing they were retiring in the first place - but they were still amazingly inspirational to Daichi and probably the countless other students of Miyagi Prefecture.

Things were going to change tonight. Tonight was the last official day of the old duo's work, and after that, the torch would be passed to the new, younger, rejuvenated Miyagi Duo who Daichi admired so much. It was a big day for everyone involved.

"We'd like to thank you all for a great run," the man was saying on screen, "In the course of helping the prefecture, I'd say that the prefecture helped us even more. It helped us grow up and grow from the people we were in high school into the people we’ve become today, and we're immensely sorry to go."

"We've helped train the new duo for a long time," the woman said, "And we’re sure that they're not going to disappoint you." She chuckled, her hair bouncing as she did. "They might be even better at this job than we are. I believe in them with all my heart, and I hope you will, too."

"Will they be delivering anything tonight?" One of the reporters asked.

"Not tonight," the woman said, "They're both fairly camera-shy."

"Give them our regards!" Another reporter said.

"We will!" the man said, before waving at the camera. After answering a few more questions, the man and woman both made their way down the stairs, waving the entire way, before getting into some kind of a limousine or something and driving away.

"Wow." Suga was the first to speak, once a commercial break started after the conference. "So everything's changing now."

"Yeah," Daichi said, "Excited?"

"Of course!" Suga laughed. "The girls at school won't shut up about them until after we graduate, if ever, but that's okay. I'm pretty stoked to see what they can do."

"Me, too," Daichi said, "I've looked up to them ever since I knew they existed."

"I'm pretty sure everyone has," Suga said. He paused. "Can I ask you something stupid?"

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Could you imagine actually meeting the new MD in person? Like talking to them or getting to know them or something dumb like that. What would they be like?"

Daichi chuckled. "That is kind of stupid." He grinned. "But it's something we've all thought about. I know I have." He looked up at the commercial for some new store or something that was playing on the TV. "I think they'd give off an air of confidence. Like they know what they're doing, you know?"

"I'd like to think that they're just like us," Suga said, "Like under the mask, they're just normal teenagers like the rest of us. I mean, you know. Do they have secret identities? What if they went to Karasuno and we didn't even know it?"

"What if we knew them but we didn't know it?"

"Now you're the one being stupid! There’s no way that would happen!"

"I know. But a guy can dream, you know?"

"I think we've all thought about actually knowing them, Daichi."

"Who hasn't? They're the Miyagi Duo, after all, they’re-"

"-Practically the coolest guys in the entire prefecture, you've told me." Suga grinned. “Multiple times.”

"What can I say? They're my idols."

"They're everyone's idols! They're going to be doing photoshoots and posing for magazine covers and become total heartthrobs in no time at all."

“I wouldn’t be surprised!”

They both burst out laughing after that, making as many dumb jokes as they could one after another. Each one prompted another fit of giggles until they laughed so hard they could barely breathe.

It was the beginning of a new era for everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's only short because it's the prologue, I'm planning to make the other chapters longer :3 (First published HQ!! fic btdubs. I'm proud and ashamed)


	2. Crash Landing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who left good comments and stuff on the last chapter! It means a lot, and I'm sorry I took this long to get this chapter done! Don't worry, things actually get underway this time. Special thanks to Lyss and Sarah for beta-ing for me! I'm forever in your debt! There are probably still a few errors and I'm not exactly happy with this chapter, but I'm such a huge perfectionist that I probably won't ever be. And you guys deserved a chapter.
> 
> If you want to see me obsess over my cute volleyball children besides writing fic about them, go check out my [tumblr!](http://violinist-tsukki.tumblr.com) You will probably be disappointed because I'm sports anime shipping trash. Especially where Tsukkiyama, Daisuga and Kuroken are concerned, hq!!-wise.

Yamaguchi Tadashi had tried to tell himself that today was just another normal Friday. He really did.

But really, what was normal when you were hiding the fact that you were one-half of the ridiculously-famous pair of superheroes that were making your entire high school lose their minds?

And even then, today could hardly count as normal. Not with all the shuffling of paper going on in class today. It wasn't even passing notes. It was like the entire class wanted to get their hands on one specific piece of paper.

Or rather, one specific magazine.

It didn't stop all day. Someone would get a look at it, then they'd pass it to the next person, and maybe in the next class, the person who originally had it would get it again. It moved around the class in a strange pattern that Yamaguchi would never understand.

"Now, class!" It had taken far too long for a teacher to take a stand, and their history teacher was just the type of person who would. "Would you like me to confiscate that magazine?"

There was quiet murmuring as the students all shook their heads.

"Good, then please, give it back to whoever brought it to school and pay attention. If I see it again, I'll take it until the end of the day."

With a sigh, a boy in the back of the class passed it up to the girl in front of him, who passed it around the class until it got to its original owner, a girl with long hair pulled back into low pigtails and a pair of simple gold studs in her ears. Blushing, she opened her bookbag and stuffed the magazine inside it.

A satisfied smirk appearing on his face, the teacher turned back to the board and continued his lecture, ignoring the bored stares of the students until the class ended.

As classes went on, and the math teacher replaced the history teacher at the head of the class, the magazine began to make its way around the classroom once again. There was excited whispering and hushed giggling for at least an hour straight.

Yamaguchi got his hands on the magazine for the third time today in math, actually stopping to look at the cover instead of carelessly passing it along like he did the last two times.

The magazine was called Paprika, and it was a tabloid-style magazine that was designed for and thus very popular among teenage girls. This time, though, the boys had all gotten their fair share at looking at it, too. This was an important issue.

The cover was adorned with little headlines all over the place, such as, "How to rock your casual date night outfit!", "Everyday makeup tips for everyday beauty disasters!", and "Which pop star is your type?", things that Yamaguchi had no interest in. But that wasn't the point.

The main focus of the cover was a headline reading, "The New Miyagi Duo - Unveiled and Unmasked!", accompanied by a picture of said duo dressed in black dress shirts and slacks. Ironically, their eyes were covered by the same masks they always wore, one mask red, the other green.

The pair of superheroes had gotten almost insanely popular with the girls of Karasuno High, with approximately half the female population of the school saying they had some sort of crush on one or both of them. It was a common occurrence to hear some of the girls gushing over how cute they were, whether it was on the walk to school, at lunch, or really anywhere.

If only Yamaguchi's secret identity actually made people notice him in real life.

That was wishful thinking. Superheroes didn't reveal their identities to the public, they just didn't. There were a multitude of things wrong with that, paparazzi being the main one.

Even then, with the way the Miyagi Duo currently worked - although Yamaguchi was trying to change that, mostly for his own sake - everyone would still notice Tsukishima more. That probably wouldn't ever change, at least not for a while. Technically, Yamaguchi was assigned to be his "sidekick", even though it was his parents who had been the previous MD and he just generally knew more about this whole superhero business.

All in all, though, Yamaguchi didn't really mind all that much when that difference actually mattered. And the Paprika cover didn't really matter. That photoshoot had been ridiculous and he and Tsukishima had both agreed that it was really dumb. Being the hottest one on the magazine cover didn't warrant a huge award.

The shuffling and giggling only ended when school did, and while Yamaguchi was hoping that it would be completely over by volleyball practice this afternoon, he wasn't surprised to find that it was far from it.

When he and Tsukishima entered the locker room, Hinata held a copy of the magazine in his hands as he ran around the room with a grin, Kageyama trying - and failing - to keep up.

"Give it back, dumbass!" Kageyama shouted, "Wasn't there a copy going around in your class?"

"Yeah, but I couldn't read the article!" Hinata shouted back, "No one would let me have it for more than ten seconds!"

"Whatever! That's my copy! I didn't read the article either!"

"Hinata, the article's online if you want to read it!" Suga said with a smile. "That's where I read it last night."

"Thanks, Suga-san!" Hinata grinned, taking his phone out of his bag, eyes wide as he unlocked it. "See, Bakeyama? I didn't need you after all!"

"Then give me my magazine back, dumbass," Kageyama muttered, before being hit in the face with it.

"You actually bought an issue of Paprika?" Tsukishima smirked. "I never would have guessed!"

"It was for the MD article, idiot. Why else would I waste my money on that crap?" Oh, the irony.

"I'm pretty sure that's why everyone bought it." Noya rolled his eyes. "Honestly, I'm not sure why everyone's so worked up about it. I mean, the MD's cool and all, but the hype's kinda dumb if you ask me."

"Don't say that to Daichi-san!" Tanaka laughed. "He's the self-proclaimed president of the Miyagi Duo fanclub!"

"Wait, really?" Yamaguchi asked, half out of not wanting to seem suspicious and half out of genuine curiosity. "Does a Miyagi Duo fanclub even exist?" He knew it did, at least on Facebook. He'd heard some of the girls in his class talking about it at some point, plus he'd seen it for himself at least once. But the team captain being a part of it? That was at least somewhat hilarious.

"I don't know, but if there was, Daichi-san would run the damn thing!" Tanaka grinned in Suga's direction. "Am I right or am I right?"

"Uh, maybe not to that extent," Suga said, "But he's definitely a fan, if that's what you were wondering, Yamaguchi."

"Oh." Yamaguchi met Tsukishima's eyes, and the two shared a knowing look before quickly looking back at Tanaka, who'd started talking about who-knows-what again.

Keeping secrets was hard sometimes, but boy, was it fun.

"Wait a sec." Tanaka stopped talking and whirled around to look down at Noya. "Why the hell don't you like the MD?"

"I never said I didn't!" Noya shrugged with a grin. "I just said that everyone flipping tables over them is really freakin' stupid."

"You're probably just jealous because more of the girls like them than you!" Someone, probably Narita, shouted from the back, eliciting a chuckle from everyone as Noya's cheeks turned ever slightly redder.

"Shut up! That's not it!" Noya's voice got just the slightest bit louder as he crossed his arms in utter defiance.

After that, the conversation strayed away from Noya's opinions on hype and everything went back to normal. Everyone finished changing and went out onto the court, Hinata being slightly later than everyone else due to wanting to finish reading the entire article before practicing. Drills went on as usual, everything was the same as it always was. Things usually stayed silent until after practice, something that Yamaguchi was always thankful for.

But once practice ended, all bets were off. Some days, there was a little bit more to do before calling it a night.

And after hearing Tsukishima's phone ringing in his bag once they finished changing, Yamaguchi not only knew who it was, but almost exactly what they would say.

Just another day for the critically-acclaimed Miyagi Duo.

"Hello?" Tsukishima frowned as he held the phone to his ear. "It isn't exactly a good time for that.” He listened for another second before nodding. “I will.” He smirked. “ As of now, yes." He listened to whoever was on the other end for maybe another minute, nodding a few times and giving periodic "Yeah"s to make sure the other person knew he understood. "I think so.” He nodded again. “Okay. I will. Bye." He put the phone back in his bag before zipping the bag shut tight.

"Who was that?" Tanaka grinned. "Your girlfriend?"

"Sadly, no.” Tsukishima rolled his eyes before looking back at Yamaguchi. “We’re leaving, come on.” He had that look in his eyes, the one that Yamaguchi knew well as the classic “I don’t want to risk my image by looking the part but oh shit this is kind of exciting” look. Just another normal Miyagi Duo adventure.

“Where are you two going?” Daichi asked, “I thought you two were on cleanup duty today."

"Sorry!" Yamaguchi smiled sheepishly, hoping that he sounded sincere enough. "We're just really busy tonight." He wasn't at all used to lying through his teeth. "We have an English test on Monday morning and we don't want to have to cram."

"Yeah, I get that!" Daichi chuckled. "Tell you what, Suga and I'll take care of it tonight if you two do the work next time we have it, which is…?" He sighed. "Suga, when is it?"

"Next Tuesday," Suga said with a smile, "Study hard, guys, see you later!"

Everyone - well, everyone except Kageyama and Hinata, who were too busy arguing to care, as usual - gave at least a tiny wave as Yamaguchi followed Tsukishima out of the gym.

"So what happened, Tsukki?" Yamaguchi asked, "Who was that and what's up?"

"Does it really matter who it was?" Tsukishima said, "It's going to be the same thing no matter who says it."

"True. So what's happening?"

"They don't really know yet, they just received some weird signal from the park right down the street from here."

"That hits close to home."

"I know." After pausing for a second, Tsukishima ducked behind a corner next to a trash can, Yamaguchi following close behind. "Do you have your uniform in your bag?"

"Do I ever not? It's a moment's-notice kind of thing, Tsukki, it's important to be prepared!"

"Yeah, I know." Zipping open his school bag, Tsukishima smirked. "It's been too long since we've done this."

"It's been a week."

"To be fair, this is the most exciting thing I've done all week." He didn't seem very excited about it, but Tsukishima was Tsukishima. He wasn't one to let that sort of thing show.

"Yeah, same here." Zipping open his bag, Yamaguchi took out a simple green eye mask, the one you'd find at party supply stores. Adjusting the elastic band so it would fit just right, he grinned at Tsukishima, who had taken off his glasses and was adjusting his own red mask.

"They recommended that we split up this time," Tsukishima said, "Although the also said that we could make it work no matter what we decided to go with." He took the thin black jacket that served as the rest of his uniform out of his bag and put it on, shrugging as he zipped it up. "I'm up for splitting up if you are. This doesn't look like anything huge."

"Okay, Tsukki!" Yamaguchi zipped up his own jacket, giving Tsukishima a thumbs-up once the zipper reached the top. “Ready?”

“Sure. Is anyone coming around the corner?”

“Does it even matter at this point?”

“Just check. You can’t be too careful.”

“Okay.” Yamaguchi craned his head around the corner, seeing that the coast was completely clear. “All good.” He closed his eyes and grinned. “Good luck, Tsukki!”

“Shut up. You’re doing this, too.”

“I know!”

After that, the two parted ways, with Tsukishima heading into the fray and Yamaguchi trying to find a place to settle down and enjoy the ride.

Eventually, he decided on the roof of the Karasuno gym. It was the tallest building anywhere near the park, and while Daichi and Suga were probably still cleaning up in there, it wasn’t like either of them would go up to the roof. And it was practically impossible that anything fight-related would be happening up here.

Taking out his phone, he quickly texted his parents about the recent development - they were the previous Miyagi Duo, after all, they deserved to know.

As far as communication devices went, phone calls weren't in any way high-tech. Nothing they used really was - besides Tsukishima's bluetooth earbuds that he'd borrowed from his brother, but even that was a stretch - but they were just fine. There was almost always a signal wherever the fight happened to be and somehow the two of them made it work.

That's what the Miyagi Duo was all about: making things work.

Yamaguchi's phone's familiar ringtone - the default tone for his model, although he did want to change it at some point - cut through the silence on the rooftop, startling him a little bit.

"Hello?"

"I'm almost there." Tsukishima sounded fairly bored, like he always did. "Wherever you set up, can you keep an eye on things and make sure everything's going according to plan?"

"Okay, Tsukki!"

"This won't take very long if we - well, I - work efficiently."

"A lot of things don't!"

"I know. Just tell me if anything looks off and it'll go perfectly fine."

"All right! Go get 'em, Tsukki!" Yamaguchi grinned, even though Tsukishima couldn't see him through the phone.

"Shut up, Yamaguchi."

"Sorry, Tsukki!" The exchange of those two lines was as normal as it always was.

After that, the line went dead as Tsukishima hung up.

Looking out at the park, there didn’t really appear to be much there. No huge mutant monsters or anything - yes, they’d definitely fought those before - no obvious explosions, no weird weather patterns, no strange groups of people, it all looked weirdly normal. Yamaguchi could still see kids on the swingset or the jungle gym if he looked hard enough. It looked like nothing whatsoever was wrong or out of the ordinary, which was a little worrying.

Maybe there was just something that he couldn’t see from his vantage point up here. That must have been it. Some things were too tiny to see from a bird’s-eye view, and maybe something could have been hiding behind a tree or under a slide or something.

But that reassurance didn’t change the feeling in Yamaguchi’s gut that this could go really wrong.

His phone rang again, but this time the caller ID showed a number that he remembered seeing before, but didn’t immediately recognize. He touched the green phone icon and pressed the phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

“This is Yamaguchi, right?” The person on the other end was a woman, her voice taking on a businesslike tone.

“Yeah, who’s this?”

“This is Kitagawa Chiyo, I’m at headquarters in Tokyo. I've been briefing you guys this whole time.” She sighed. “Are you and Tsukishima out right now?”

“Yeah, why are you asking?”

“What are you two doing? I didn’t call you or anything!”

“We got a call about ten minutes ago about something in the park right by our high school.”

“Who was it? It sure wasn’t me.”

“I don’t know who it was, sorry. Was it someone you were working with?”

“I’m in charge of mission briefing for your general area, I'm the only one who gives those calls. I’m the only one who’s supposed to.” She sounded half-exasperated, half-afraid, and that was wholly not good from someone who was supposed to know everything about what you were supposed to be doing.

“That’s really weird.”

Chiyo paused on the other end before continuing. “Yeah, it doesn’t look like there’s anything near you guys.” Her voice got the slightest bit quieter. “This might be some kind of trap. A fake call would be the perfect way to lure you two in. Keep your eyes peeled.”

“Okay. We will.”

“All right, good luck.”

Chiyo was the one to end the call, and Yamaguchi was met with the familiar tone that came with being hung up on before he put the phone back in his pocket.

So his gut feeling had been right after all. Which made this more dangerous than anything he’d done before.

And if the park was actually a trap of some sort...

Oh, _crap_.

Whipping his phone out of his pocket once again, Yamaguchi scrolled through his contacts as fast as he could, wondering why T had to be so far down at the bottom of the list and why he hadn’t just bookmarked Tsukishima as one of his favorite contacts at some point.

He could have done it when he’d gotten the phone in the first place. It had been his first smartphone - his parents had given it to him for a middle school graduation gift - and he’d spent most of the first two days he’d had it fooling around with all the settings on it. He’d changed his wallpaper probably twenty times. He’d taken a ton of pictures on the actually-high-quality camera, mostly selfies he’d taken with Tsukishima in his backyard, most of which he hadn’t deleted yet for some reason he couldn’t explain. He’d downloaded too many apps for his own good. He’d gotten an Instagram. He’d gotten a Snapchat. He hadn’t checked either of them in at least three weeks now. He’d done practically everything except add people to his ten favorite contacts that always appeared at the top of the list, and at this point, he was really regretting it.

Once he scrolled down far enough to find Tsukishima’s name on the list, Yamaguchi tapped it maybe five times in rapid succession, even though the time the phone took loading was faster than it usually was. He did the same thing with the phone number after Tsukishima’s contact details loaded.

Holding the phone tightly up against his ear, Yamaguchi crossed his fingers behind his back, hoping that there would be something besides the dial tone on the other end.  

One ring.

Then two.

Then three.

Then a click.

“Hello?” Tsukishima at least didn't sound any different.

Yamaguchi sighed with relief. “Good, you picked up.”

“What happened?”

“Tsukki, you have to get out of there.”

“What? What’s going on?” He sounded slightly confused, which probably meant nothing had happened, but it was better to stay on the safe side.

“You’re at the park, right?”

“Yes. What happened?”

“You know the lady who’s in charge of mission briefing? The one in Tokyo who always calls us when stuff happens?”

“Yeah, but what does she have to do with any of this?”

“She said she wasn’t the one who called you earlier. She doesn’t think that anyone at headquarters did.”

“Then who called me?”

“I don’t know. She said that this whole thing could be a trap, and I kind of agree.” Yamaguchi craned his neck, trying to look down at the park again to see if anything had changed. Nothing had. “What’s going on down there? I’m not seeing anything.”

There was a pause of maybe six seconds on Tsukishima’s end before he spoke again, his voice more like a whisper than anything. “Neither am I. People are still here, and they’re just doing normal things. Nothing looks wrong at all.” He chuckled. “If they saw me here, they’d probably just act like normal paparazzi.”

“Are you sure you didn’t notice anything?”

“Completely sure. Everything’s fine.”

“This is getting weird.”

“I know.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Yamaguchi thought he saw something move. Was he just being paranoid? He must have been. No one even knew he was up here, right? That was highly unlikely.

But it wasn’t impossible. Nothing ever was.

“H-hey, Tsukki, are you still there?” Oh, no, he was starting to freak out.

“Yeah, why?”

“I thought I just saw something up here.”

“What? How would anyone know your location?” Tsukishima's voice was slightly louder.

“I have no idea.”

“This isn’t good.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Everything got ever slightly darker for a second before returning to its original sunny state.

“Tsukki, did you see that? The sky got darker for a second.”

“That’s a cloud passing in front of the sun, Yamaguchi, you’re worrying too much - wait.” Tsukishima paused. “There aren’t any clouds in the sky.”

“What?”

“Look up, there aren’t any.”

Sure enough, when Yamaguchi looked up, the entire sky was the same shade of light blue, not a sign of white or gray to be found. It was a beautiful day, apart from the weirdness of the situation. Maybe the temporary darkness was just a figment of his imagination. Maybe all the strange things that had just happened had taken a toll on his mind.

“I think I’m going to leave the park,” Tsukishima said, “It doesn’t look like there’s anything going on here, and I think it would be better for us to stick together with everything that’s been going on.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“There’s definitely something about this that’s really weird. I'm not giving up anytime soon.”

“Neither am I.”

“Where are you?”

“On top of the gym.”

“Okay. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Okay! Bye, Tsukki!"

After Tsukishima hung up, Yamaguchi looked around the roof again. Was there anything there? Was there something in the shadows that he hadn't seen before?

Was he just overthinking this?

Slowly making his way to his feet, Yamaguchi started around the rooftop, being careful to avoid making any noise in case Daichi and Suga were still inside. After all, if Daichi was the MD’s biggest fan like Tanaka had said he was, he’d try to get up to the roof himself, and not only would that be incredibly dangerous, he’d also find out their secret identities faster than you could say their own names. After all, when you saw someone for a good four to five hours every day, you got to know them pretty well.

After making his way to the opposite corner of the roof, Yamaguchi turned back around to see as much of it has he possibly could. There still wasn’t anything there, although the breeze had gotten a little stronger than it was a few minutes ago.

 _You’re just thinking too much,_ he thought to himself, _There’s nothing wrong with a little breeze. Nothing at all._

Still, he could feel his heart thumping away, each beat threatening to make it explode right out of his chest. He knew that nothing about this was normal, no matter how much he tried to tell himself that it was.

The calm didn’t last that much longer before the storm set in.

It started when Yamaguchi saw what looked like a shadow sneaking along the ground, seemingly of its own accord, since there weren’t any people around. He blinked, knowing that he must have been so freaked out that he was seeing things. But no, when he opened his eyes again, the shadow was still there, slithering across the roof like a snake, right towards him.

“Hey!” Out of all the things he’d done in his more-than-normal life, Yamaguchi never thought he’d end up talking to something which shouldn’t be moving in the first place, but today was already weird enough. “What’s going on?”

The shadow didn’t say anything - why would it? - and continued slithering ever closer to where Yamaguchi was standing.

This wasn’t good.

Yamaguchi didn’t consider himself a fighter. He never did. He just thought that he didn’t have the personality for it, and having some of the most non-combat-oriented superpowers in the country, he didn’t really like stirring up conflict with anybody, secret identity in place or not. Besides, he and Tsukishima were a pair, and as long as one of them was able to fight reasonably well, the rest wouldn't really matter.

Except, of course, in a moment like right now, when Yamaguchi was completely alone with something that more likely than not wanted to kill him.

Great.

But what was this shadow thing going to do? It didn’t necessarily look that creepy or anything, and while he should have known better than to assume it was harmless, there were probably a ton of things worse than this that could happen.

That didn’t change the fact that Yamaguchi was still immensely freaked out at the shadow - you know, something that was supposed to be attached to a person and not move on its own - slithering along the ground right in front of his feet.

Just as it looked like it was about to go either right underneath him or right onto his shoes - even though there was no way either of those things were possible - Yamaguchi closed his eyes, waiting for the impact.

After all, there wasn’t much he could do about any of this -

“I get off the phone for two minutes and when I get here, I have _this_ to deal with.” Yamaguchi could practically hear the irritated "tch" tacked on at the end.

A loud crack pierced the quiet of the roof, followed immediately by a loud sizzle and a noise that sounded almost like a shriek.

Eyelids flying open, Yamaguchi looked down to see the shadow scurrying away from him as far as it possibly could. His eyes followed it as it made a mad dash across the roof to the other corner.

Where Tsukishima happened to be standing, his right hand still up and still shooting little tiny sparks.

Having a best friend who could control electricity definitely had its perks.

“What is that thing?” He asked, eyes wide and looking down at the shadow on the ground, slithering closer to him at almost terrifying speed.

“I have no idea!”

“This went from weird to creepy really fast.” Tsukishima even sounded slightly freaked out, and that had only happened once before in the years that Yamaguchi had known him.

And after that, everything seemed to go by in a blur.

Right before the shadow creature reached Tsukishima’s feet, it started to grow. Well, not really grow as much as it peeled itself off the ground and revealed its height to be even taller than he was. It was like a black cloud, just sitting there waiting to stir up a thunderstorm.

And then, it struck.

Rushing forward at a breakneck speed impossible to dodge, the shadow enveloped Tsukishima’s body in a thick black cloud of something that looked like smoke for maybe two seconds - although it seemed more like a blink of an eye - before almost passing through him and retreating off the edge of the roof, seeming to start to disintegrate once its task was said and done.

It was maybe a ten-second-long process, and Yamaguchi was too petrified to do anything but stand and watch.

But the time that he’d spend standing and watching things happen was just about over.

Especially when Tsukishima fell to his knees, the shining gold in his eyes replaced by something dull and lifeless and the very tips of his hair almost looking like they'd been dyed black. Even if that part was just a figment of Yamaguchi's overstimulated imagination, it couldn't have been a coincidence.

Once the smoke cleared, Yamaguchi had already started running across the roof, almost tripping over his own feet about halfway across in the frenzy of everything. In any other situation, he would have been completely and utterly humiliated at how clumsy he was, but this was so different that it didn't matter. He didn't care.

"Tsukki!" Yamaguchi kneeled down so he was at eye level with the other boy. "What happened? Are you okay? Did you get hurt?"

"I don't think so." Tsukishima's eyes darted around as he spoke, a frown appearing on his face. "I don't know what just happened, it's like…" He trailed off as he started to fall forward, eyelids fluttering.

"Whoa!" Yamaguchi put his arms out to catch him as he fell, and while it was pretty uncomfortable, it worked. "Can you tell me when you're going to try something like that, Tsukki? My arms are going to be sore!"

"I would if I could," Tsukishima mumbled. He was quieter than usual, his eyes staring out into space.

"Are you okay?" Yamaguchi asked, "That was really creepy."

"I don't know," Tsukishima said, "Something feels off, but I have no idea what it is."

"Maybe you're just exhausted."

"No, it's not that. I know what exhaustion feels like, and this is _different_." Tsukishima sighed. "Maybe it's just the adrenaline rush or my nerves acting up or something stupid like that. I think I'm fine."

"Okay, good."

Tsukishima stood up. "We should probably go. I don't think that we have enough energy to go out and find whatever that thing was."

"Hey, Tsukki!" Yamaguchi scampered up to his feet, putting an arm around Tsukishima's shoulder. “Wait up, okay? I want to be right here if you decide to go almost fainting on me again.”

“Why are you so worried?”

“Did you see what happened? I’m pretty sure I have every right to be.”

“Fair enough.” Tsukishima paused, looking down at the ground two stories below. “How are we going to get down?”

“Tsukki, you're the one who has better flying skills!"

"Oh. Right." Tsukishima frowned again.

"I can try if you have a problem with it! I'm not as good as you are, but I think I could do it if you don't want to -"

"I'm fine, stop worrying about me." Yamaguchi could almost hear the eye-roll.

"Okay." The doubt in Yamaguchi's voice seemed obvious as he said it, and that was completely fine. It didn't matter at this point, did it?

"I'll try to take it slow," Tsukishima said, "And since it's not a long way back to the ground, that won't be very hard to pull off. I can't make any promises, though."

"That's okay."

"Hold on. Just in case."

Yamaguchi nodded, grabbing onto Tsukishima's hand.

"Okay," Tsukishima said calmly, looking over the edge of the roof, "Count of three." He paused for a second. "One, two, three."

They jumped off the edge of the roof.

And started falling rapidly towards the ground.

Out of the two of them, there was no doubt that Tsukishima was the better flier, but Yamaguchi liked to think that he wasn't completely horrible in that regard.

And so, closing his eyes to concentrate, he tried to think of the two of them levitating slowly down to the ground. His telekinesis was mediocre at best, but it was the only option.

They stopped with a jerk, not on the ground but still in the air.

Opening his eyes a crack, Yamaguchi realized that they were only a scant two inches above the ground.

He sighed with relief, making a mental note to pat himself on the back later.

"That was close." Tsukishima dropped the remaining distance to the ground.

"What happened?"

"I don't know. My powers just didn't work for some reason."

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Tsukishima rubbed his temples. "I think the stress is just keeping me from concentrating."

"Oh. Okay."

"Everything will be back to normal in a few minutes. This is nothing." Another small frown appeared on Tsukishima's face.

"Tsukki?" Yamaguchi asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I just feel a little weird about all this. I'm fine, I've told you about ten times."

And with that, he promptly passed out right behind the school gym, a faint black wisp of smoke dancing around him as he fell.

"Tsukki!" Yamaguchi rushed over and caught the other boy in his arms right before he hit the ground. "I told you to tell me when you were going to do that again!"

There was no response. Tsukishima was out cold.

Yamaguchi sighed. "I guess you really weren't fine, huh?"


	3. Discovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My best friend who usually betas for me is at summer camp so I decided to wing it solo and yeah this chapter is weeeeak

At that moment, there were four things that Yamaguchi was certain of, and a lot more that he wasn’t.

One, he was certain that things had happened this time that _clearly_ weren’t supposed to. Two, he was certain that he wasn’t prepared for this. Three, he was certain that something was trying to attack the Miyagi Duo head-on. And four, he was certain that his best - and only, at this point - friend was lying unconscious on the ground behind the school gym.

Everything else - what exactly had just happened, why it had happened, how it had happened, et cetera - was a complete mystery as far as he was concerned.

Everything had just happened so fast. It had really been only twenty minutes since practice ended, and it was only late afternoon, maybe around 5:30 or so. The early summer sun had been beating down mercilessly when they'd left the gym, and it still was now. Thankfully, they'd found a spot in the shade, where it was at least slightly cooler. The last thing anyone needed at a time like this was to be burning up in the unusually-high-for-May temperature.

It wasn’t like Yamaguchi expected everything to be normal every time. Of course that wasn’t going to happen. He just wasn’t used to it yet. This was the first time something out-of-the-ordinary had happened to him.

But there was something more than that, something that had nothing to do with being used to things and everything to do with Tsukishima being out cold on the freaking ground.

When his parents had come home from a mission or something, they never suffered any major injuries. Sure, they may have had a few minor cuts or bruises sometimes, but it was nothing major and nothing that Yamaguchi ever noticed until he was maybe ten and had started training for when he was eventually going to take over the job himself.

But now, he had absolutely no idea if Tsukishima was okay or not, and Yamaguchi was pretty sure it was the latter. It was that weird feeling in his gut again, the same one that made an appearance back when he was looking at the lack of activity at the park and wondering if it was a setup. And he was sure right that time, so why would he be wrong now?

There were still tiny black wisps appearing and disappearing as the slight breeze seemed to blow them across Tsukishima’s closed eyes as his chest slowly and slightly rose and fell. He still looked somewhat peaceful considering everything that had just happened.

Why did it have to be him? Why didn’t Yamaguchi just take the hit himself? Technically speaking, he’d been preparing for this almost his whole life. He was the one with the experience, even if that was only defined as hearing about his parents’ exploits as bedtime stories every night they had a new one to tell. But that didn’t seem to matter, not now, not five minutes ago when he’d been completely helpless, just standing there waiting for defeat instead of fighting back. It didn’t matter when he was so ridiculously weak that Tsukishima, who’d only entered the Miyagi Duo picture in sixth grade because there was literally no one else, had to jump in and save him, Yamaguchi Tadashi, the one who was supposed to know what to do in every situation because he’d heard so much about the things his parents had done ever since he could remember, but couldn’t even defend himself when the going got tough. And look what had happened because of it. No matter how you sliced it, everything that had just happened was entirely his fault, and yet Tsukishima was the one who paid for it.

And Yamaguchi had no idea what to do but sit there, blaming himself because he couldn’t do this right, even though he knew he should have been able to.

“Jeez, we should really clean the windows.” Daichi’s voice came from inside the gym, interrupting Yamaguchi’s storm of self-deprecation. Crap, so he was still there. This certainly made things complicated.

“Yeah, we can barely see through them anymore.” Suga’s chuckle was quiet, but still audible even from outside. “I think it would be nice, now that summer’s coming and all!”

“Want to do it now? I mean, if you don’t have anything else to do, that is.”

“Sure. I mean, they’ll only get dirtier the longer we wait.”

“Okay.” Daichi paused. “How are we going to split it up?”

“How about we go out the front door, I go right, you go left, and we meet up at the back?”

“Fine by me.”

Their conversation stopped after that, or at least it got too quiet for Yamaguchi to hear. But he'd heard more than enough

Why was this happening now? Why did they have to clean the windows today? Why not next week? Why not tomorrow?

This was it. Today was the day that the Miyagi Duo would be discovered. And there was no way to stop it.

At least it was Daichi and Suga as opposed to the rest of the team. They, along with Asahi, Kiyoko, and maybe the second-years that weren't Tanaka and Noya, were the people who you could trust to keep a secret. And they would be surprised, sure, but they probably wouldn't be the type to judge, no matter how scary Daichi got during practice sometimes. It was pretty bad to be discovered in the first place, but it could have been a lot worse.

"Okay, see you at the back!" Suga shouted.

"I bet I'll get done first!" Daichi retorted.

"What's your wager?"

"The cost of buying pork buns for everybody next time we all go out."

Suga laughed. "You have a deal."

Someone's footsteps echoed through the silence that followed, getting ever louder as the person attached to them got closer.

What was Yamaguchi supposed to say? What was he supposed to do? How was he supposed to explain any of it? Was he supposed to hide it and deny it or just come clean? Like everything else today, he was hopelessly unprepared for this.

Suga was the one to walk around the corner, rag and soap in hand, his eyes widening once he saw who was there. His mouth opened slightly, like he was going to say something but he didn't know what.

All that was going through Yamaguchi's mind was a chorus of _oh shit I'm screwed oh shit I'm screwed oh shit I'm screwed on repeat._

"Um," Suga was the first one to speak. He started but then paused, like he was still thinking of what he was going to say. He looked down at the ground and mumbled something that sounded like "Keep your cool, Koushi, it's the MD, you don't want to act like an idiot."

Wait, did he not recognize them?

Well, they were still a considerate distance away. And the masks did a surprisingly good job at hiding their identities.

"Hi," Suga said, "Um, I'm sorry for intruding whatever's going on here."

He didn't recognize them. This was a miracle.

"I, uh…" Suga continued, pausing again not long after. "I just wanted to say that, um, I- I'm a huge fan, and uh, yeah."

"Oh." That was the only thing that Yamaguchi could muster in terms of a reply.

"I'm just cleaning the windows," Suga said, nervously scratching the back of his head with the hand that wasn't carrying the rag, "Don't mind me, I'm just passing through!"

He took a few steps down along the wall before stopping at a window. A few steps closer to them. Just as he was about to start rubbing down the window with the rag, he turned around, his eyes even wider than they were before, filled with something that looked like surprise but was definitely recognition.

Crap. The _oh shit I'm screwed_ chorus only played faster.

"…Yamaguchi?!"

Shit. There was nothing to do now but accept it.

"Uh, yeah." Yamaguchi looked down at the ground. It was all over. And it had only been two months since he’d started this. It was utterly humiliating.  

"No way." Suga looked down, his mouth open in surprise. "Oh, my gosh, is that Tsukishima? Is he okay?"

"Yeah." Yamaguchi followed Suga's gaze to where Tsukishima was still out cold, certainly calmer than both of the people who were still conscious. "I don't know, I think so but I'm not sure."

"It's you two." Suga looked from Yamaguchi to Tsukishima and back to Yamaguchi again. "You two are the MD. I can't believe it." He smiled. "I have to say, you guys did a great job hiding it. I never would have guessed."

"Oh." Yamaguchi smiled a little. "Thanks."

"You're welcome! I'm -" He started laughing. "I don't know what to say! You guys are first-years, it's amazing that you're doing all this and you're younger than I am."

"Um, thanks, Suga-san."

Suga scrunched his eyebrows up in thought. "That really explains a lot."

"Like what?"

"Like why you guys left early today and had Daichi and I clean up." He smirked. "There wasn't really an English quiz, was there?"

Yamaguchi shook his head.

"I thought so." Suga smiled again before looking down at Tsukishima, his smile turning into a tight frown. "Now what exactly happened here?"

"It's nothing, you don't need to worry about -"

"I don't need to worry about it?" Suga looked like he could probably glare a hole right through Yamaguchi's skull if he had the ability to. "I know you guys have secret identities to uphold, but this looks pretty serious and I want to help you in any way that I can."

"Suga-san, you wouldn't understand."

"I want to try," Suga said, a determined and defiant look on his face.

Yamaguchi eventually sighed. "Okay, fine."

He told Suga the whole story, starting with when they left practice and talking about the weird lack of anything at the park, the fake call, and the weird shadow thing that had all but attacked them. Suga listened intently, eyes wide in curiosity.

"So that's it," Yamaguchi said, "And now we're here."

"Wow," Suga said, "That seems too weird to be true."

"It is," Yamaguchi said, "Even for me."

Suga's eyes narrowed as he quickly looked around their surroundings. "How are we going to do this?"

"Do what?"

"Get you and Tsukishima out of here, for one."

"Oh. Y-you don't need to do that, I think I can handle it."

"Yes, I do. It's the least I can do to help you guys out." He looked down towards the end of the wall and sighed. "Daichi's probably already at the back, and if I take any longer, he'll realize something's wrong." He smiled again. "But I can risk that."

"I don't think I can." Yamaguchi frowned again. Suga finding out was bad enough. Anyone else, no matter who it was, would only make things more complicated and just worse overall.

"Right, sorry." Suga's smile stayed plastered to his face, but it took on a slightly sadder look. "I wonder how Daichi would react to this. I mean, Tanaka was right earlier, he's as much of a superfan as they come, believe it or not." He chuckled. "I mean, he didn't know it was you two, of course, but you guys are surprisingly inspirational. I don't mean to sound sappy, but you guys changed his life."

Yamaguchi didn't know what to say, and just responded with opening his mouth slightly in a surprised look that tried and probably failed to convey everything he was thinking.

"Yeah," Suga continued, looking up at the sky, "Don't tell him I told you, but he was pretty shy as a first-year. A lot of us were. New school, new faces, people from every middle school we'd ever heard of, and even some we didn't. I don't know how we managed to make friends at all, because we were both the kind of people who didn't really talk to anyone. But somehow, we made it work, and not long after that, I was over at his house when that press conference came on TV. The one that said you guys would be taking over in a little under two years. And I guess he got inspired by that. He started putting himself out there more, and he got better grades, and he tried harder at everything, and I think it was because the people he could look up to were around the same age as him and could take on the world, so he wanted to do that, too." Suga laughed. "Sorry, that was kinda long."

"No, it's fine," Yamaguchi said, "It was -"

He was interrupted by a series of coughs as Tsukishima came to, slowly blinking his eyes and stretching his arms above his head, like he'd just woken up after sleeping well into the afternoon. Which Yamaguchi knew he was prone to do once in a blue moon.

"What the hell…?" He asked, sitting up slowly, putting his hands out behind him to lean on.

"Tsukki!" Yamaguchi grinned. "You're awake!"

"Yeah." Tsukishima nodded slowly, looking around at their surroundings.

Before his eyes landed on Suga.

"What are you doing here?"

"I was cleaning the windows and I just happened to find you two here," Suga said, "And, before you try to deny it, I know your little secret." If anyone else had said that, it would have sounded particularly menacing and probably would have freaked Yamaguchi out a lot more. But Suga only sounded mischievous, like a little kid who knew who his best friend's crush was and threatened in a sing-song voice to tell their special someone, but valued their friendship too much to go through with it. He didn't sound threatening at all.

Tsukishima’s eyes widened. “Well, that changes things.”

“Yep.” Suga grinned. “I was telling Yamaguchi this earlier, but what you guys are doing is really cool.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“You’re welcome!” The smile quickly disappeared from his face. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Okay, good.”

“Excuse me for asking, but why do you care?”

Suga put his hands on his hips. "Because I'm your teammate, and your vice-captain. You guys are annoying sometimes, but in the end, we're a team. No matter what." He sighed. "Sorry, that sounded weird. But you get my point, right?"

"Yeah," Yamaguchi said.

"Good." Suga smiled. “I probably sound like a broken record by now, but I can’t believe any of this. Like, it’s such a weird coincidence that out of everyone who could have been the first person to find out about this, it’s me.”

“That’s nice.” Tsukishima rolled his eyes as the sarcasm practically dripped off his tongue - which Yamaguchi surprisingly found slightly comforting, considering that if his normal attitude was still in place, he was probably fine. “But there are clearly more important things to worry about than coincidences.”

“Like what?” Suga asked.

“Whatever happened on the roof,” Tsukishima said, “That was the strangest thing I’ve seen in the two months I’ve been doing this.”

“I’ve heard.” Suga frowned. “That sounds really tough.”

“I’m more worried about possible side effects,” Tsukishima continued, seeming to ignore Suga entirely. “I feel fine now, but there’s no way to tell if anything’s wrong or if things are going to get worse later." He paused, eyes narrowed. "And I have this weird feeling that they are."

He was right, of course. Yamaguchi had watched enough TV over the fifteen years he'd been alive to know Murphy's Law by heart: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, in the worst way possible. His mind was racing as he thought of all the possibilities of just how things would play out and how badly they would go, and some of the things he thought about were things he instantly wished he could forget.

"Well, if it means anything, you look normal enough," Suga said, flashing Tsukishima a quick thumbs-up.

"-Suga, what are you doing over here?" That was Daichi again. And he sounded a lot closer. Of course he had to find out, too. It was just the icing on the crappy Friday cake. Thankfully, he hadn't rounded the corner yet, but he was getting close. "I finished five minutes ago!"

"Sorry!" Suga shouted back. "There's just a lot of gunk on the windows over here!"

"I can come over there and help, if you want!"

Suga's eyes widened. "No, it's okay! I'll get it done soon!"

Daichi chuckled. "You already lost the bet! I'm coming over there and we're going to finish the job!"

If the situation had been different, and there wasn't a feeling of serious danger in the air, Yamaguchi might have found the look of shock on the captain's face hilarious as he walked around the corner. But like everything else today, that had changed, too.

"What the -" Daichi chuckled nervously. "Out of all the things I was expecting, this was not one of them." He paused, looking over at the two first-years looking right back up at him, before looking back at Suga and breaking out into a grin. "Are you serious?!"

"Yeah," Suga said, "Your eyes aren't playing tricks on you."

"Wow." Daichi smirked as he turned back to Tsukishima and Yamaguchi. "You guys are the actual Miyagi Duo, that's ridiculous! I can't believe it."

"That's what I said!" Suga giggled. "But I still lose the bet, right?"

"No. These are special circumstances." His eyes were wide with something that looked a lot like excitement and he looked like he was about to scream like a little kid who'd just been told he was going to Disneyland, but he somehow managed to keep his cool.

"Yes!" Suga pumped his fist in the air enthusiastically.

"Now, then." Daichi frowned at the first-years sitting in front of them. "What happened, and what are you doing here?"

"It's a long story," Tsukishima grumbled, now staring intensely at the wall behind Daichi instead of looking at him.

"I'm sure I can wait long enough to hear it," Daichi said.

Tsukishima gave a particularly exasperated sigh before looking up at the captain. "Essentially, what happened was that we were called out on a normal-looking job at the park a few blocks from here, but when we got there, nothing was actually happening. Eventually, we found out that the call was sort of like a prank call to set us up for some sort of trap, and when we found ourselves on the gym roof, this shadow thing attacked us out of nowhere, and we came down here to find a place to stay hidden and catch our breath. Neither of which actually happened."

"Um, you kind of forgot to mention the part where you passed out afterward,” Suga said disapprovingly, “That’s kind of important."

"Yes, that, too." Tsukishima's voice was flat, like he didn't care about that one fairly major detail. Which he probably didn't, even though Suga was right in saying that it was particularly important. "But the key thing here is that it was completely abnormal. Nothing like this has ever happened before."

Daichi frowned, looking down at the pair of first-years. "Are you okay? That sounds pretty brutal."

"I'm fine." Tsukishima looked down at the ground. "Everything's gotten better since it happened, so I don't think anything's happened in the long run." He'd said he was fine maybe five times before he'd passed out, but Yamaguchi decided to ignore that for now.

"Nothing really happened to me." Yamaguchi shrugged. "I'm okay."

"Good." Daichi gave a small smile. "It must have been kind of freaky."

"Yeah," Yamaguchi said, looking up at the clouds flitting across the sky, "It really was."

"If this is considered weird, then what's normal for you two?" Daichi chuckled. "I know that isn't the point, but I'd kind of like to know."

"I'm sure there's time to talk about that later," Suga said, playfully rolling his eyes. "Now kind of isn't the time to fanboy."

"I know!" Daichi laughed, lightly punching Suga in the shoulder.

"Um, sorry to interrupt," Yamaguchi said quietly, "But could I ask you something?"

The two third-years stopped laughing and looked down at him.

"Uh, could you not tell anybody about this?"

"Yeah, definitely!" Suga smiled.

"Totally." Daichi looked around at the lopsided oval shape that the four of them had created. "It'll just stay between us, and nobody will know."

"Thanks." Yamaguchi sighed. "That's one less thing I need to worry about."

"No problem," Suga said, before grinning at Daichi. "Now, if you don't mind, we should probably finish cleaning the windows."

Daichi laughed. "I kinda forgot about that!"

"Text us if you guys need anything," Suga said, "Everything looks fine now, so I don't think you need to worry.Hopefully, this was just something a little weird and it'll all be back to normal in a few hours."

"Yeah, me too," Yamaguchi mumbled, more to himself than anything.

"Hey, Suga, my stuff’s still at the back.” Daichi started walking towards the back of the school before turning around to face the silver-haired boy. “Want to come with me?”

“Uh, sure!” Suga smiled, before turning toward Tsukishima and Yamaguchi. “See you guys on Monday!” He giggled, looking back behind him at the other third-year. “I’m pretty sure Daichi’s going to have an entire interview planned out when we get to practice, so watch out.”

“Hey!” Daichi laughed. “I heard that!”

“What? It’s true!” Suga grinned, running off to join him as the two of them walked back behind the school, fake-arguing the whole time.

After they left, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi sat for a solid minute in silence, only looking at each other with almost identical looks on their faces. The only sound that Yamaguchi could hear was his own quiet breathing.

"That sucked." Tsukishima was the first to break the silence, saying what both of them were thinking.

"I know," Yamaguchi said, looking down at the ground, "I mean, there are a few positives here -"

"Yeah, like what?" Tsukishima interrupted.

"Not having to lie to get out of practice early for a job. Gaining respect from two of the third-years who previously thought we were lazy assholes, including the captain." Yamaguchi started counting on his fingers, furrowing his eyebrows as he tried to think of another reason why this could possibly be a good thing, even though he knew it wasn't. "We can get help from them if something goes wrong and we ever need it." He giggled. "They're probably going to look at us like we're gods walking the earth from now on, Tsukki! What more could you want?"

"That's nice and all, but it doesn't change anything."

"Yeah." Yamaguchi sighed. "You're still coming over later, right?"

"It's Friday, why would I not?"

Since middle school, it was a tradition for the two of them to sleep over at each other's houses every Friday, and it probably would be for a while. It was a nice distraction from the fact that neither of them had other friends they could really spend Friday nights with, and it usually ended up being pretty fun.

"Good," Yamaguchi said with a smile, "I'm looking forward to a Mario Kart rematch."

"You're on." Tsukishima smirked.

Yamaguchi stood up and stretched his arms above his head. "Um, do you think you can walk?"

"Yeah, I'm just fine." Tsukishima rolled his eyes as he stood up. "You're worrying about me way too much."

"What else am I supposed to do? The last time you tried walking it off like nothing happened, you ended up collapsing."

"Yeah, I know. But I'm okay now, really."

"Okay."

"I mean, I don't have as long of a walk home as you do."

"Yeah."

"Let's go. I have things to do before going to your house."

"Yeah, me, too."

After that, the two of them started walking in the direction of their respective houses, sticking together since they only lived a few blocks away from each other. Once Tsukishima turned down his street, Yamaguchi made the rest of the trek alone, thankful that he hadn't completely drained his phone battery so he could listen to music while he walked.

Once he got home roughly five minutes later, he went straight upstairs to his bedroom and practically flopped down onto his back on the bed. Truth be told, everything that had just happened was exhausting, and he really just wanted to get something to eat and take a nap.

After two minutes of lying there doing nothing, his phone buzzed, startling him out of the half-asleep state he'd fallen into as he reached over and picked it up off the floor.

* * *

From: Tsukki (*^ω^)

5:53 PM

 

Hey could I come over earlier

 

To: Tsukki (*^ω^)

5:54 PM

 

Yeah why?

 

From: Tsukki (*^ω^)

5:54 PM

 

Just realized something about what happened today

 

From: Tsukki (*^ω^)

5:55 PM

 

Basically things just got a lot worse and we need to talk about it

 

To: Tsukki (*^ω^)

5:55 PM

 

What

 

To: Tsukki (*^ω^)

5:55 PM

 

What happened?

 

From: Tsukki (*^ω^)

5:56 PM

 

I'll tell you later. I'll be at your place at 6:20-ish if it works with you.

 

To: Tsukki (*^ω^)

5:57 PM

 

Sure but I'm still confused

 

From: Tsukki (*^ω^)

5:58 PM

 

So am I

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Say yes to kaomoji!
> 
>  
> 
> ~~I don't know how to format text messages sorry hopefully the next one will be better idk~~
> 
>  
> 
> If you liked, you can leave a comment if you want! I like human interaction.


	4. Smorzando

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's raining right now. Like torrential downpour. I'm sitting in my attic writing. It really sets the mood. I love rain as long as I'm inside.
> 
> I also told myself that I'd finish writing this chapter before my concert tomorrow. But I finished revising and I'm posting it today so yay.
> 
> Anyway, to explain the artsy chapter title: Smorzando is a musical term meaning "to get softer" or "to die away". I'm a nerd who's proud of herself.
> 
> Comments and kudos and things are always appreciated!

_I could have done better._

Yamaguchi stared up at the white ceiling of his bedroom as he lay out on his bed.

_I could have been stronger._

If he was able to, he could probably stare a hole right through his ceiling and through the roof of his house up into the sky.

_It could have been different._

He was overthinking it. He was overthinking everything.

_It could have turned out okay._

But thinking was practically all he could do about it.

_I could have done something right._

The seconds ticked by, turning into minutes as he lay there, everything that had just happened playing over and over again in his head.

_I could have changed everything._

He turned over and made a noise that was halfway between a sigh and a scream into his pillow. Thinking about it any more wouldn’t do him any good. He’d just end up blaming himself more than he already was, if that was even possible.

At least in the forty-some minutes that Yamaguchi had been home, he’d had a chance to calm down and at least be slightly more rational when he thought about it, whatever that meant. The circumstances were entirely outside of his control - how was he supposed to know that the call was a setup? He wasn’t. That’s what he kept telling himself. But what actually happened after that was something he definitely could have changed. And that was what was eating at him right now and making him yell words into his pillow that he probably would have been grounded for saying in front of his parents.

His endless playlist of I could have done better I should have done better was cut short by the familiar ding-dong of the doorbell from downstairs.

Sitting up slowly, he looked at the alarm clock on his nightstand, the glowing red numbers reading 6:18, before putting one leg and then the other on the floor and standing up. The process took about a minute.

Once he reached the landing at the top of the stairs, the doorbell rang again, sounding as impatient as a doorbell could.

“I’m coming, just a sec!” Yamaguchi smirked at no one in particular before shuffling down the stairs two at a time before almost tripping around halfway to the first floor and slowing down the rest of the way.

Once he miraculously got to the front door without falling flat on his face, he opened the door to see Tsukishima holding his cell phone up to his ear, listening to the person speaking on the other end with his eyes narrowed. A black duffel bag was sitting on the step next to him. He gave Yamaguchi the traditional no-effort wave with his free hand, but almost immediately afterward went back to the conversation.

"Hey, I've gotta go," Tsukishima said into the receiver. He paused, waiting for the other person to talk. "Okay. I will." He looked disgusted for a quick second. "No, that isn't a good idea. You shouldn't risk it." He rolled his eyes. "Okay, bye." He pressed the red icon on his phone screen before putting it in his pocket and turning to Yamaguchi. "Hey."

"Who were you talking to, Tsukki?" Yamaguchi asked.

"My brother."

"What about?"

"Stuff. I'll tell you about it later."

"Oh. Okay." Yamaguchi opened the door wider, letting his best friend in before shutting it tight. "You're early."

"Yeah, by two minutes." Tsukishima led the way back up the stairs. "Are your parents home?"

"Not for another hour, no."

"Oh." He turned around with a smirk once he reached the top of the stairs. "So, Mario Kart?"

Yamaguchi grinned, stepping ahead and opening the door to his bedroom. "You know it, Tsukki! You only won last time because of beginner's luck!"

"I don't know." Tsukishima sat down in the navy blue desk chair and gave it a spin, putting his bag down on the floor. "Beginner's luck doesn't do much on Rainbow Road, and I still won at that."

"Whatever!" Yamaguchi laughed, grabbing two Wii remotes and handing one to Tsukishima before sitting down on the futon. He turned on the Wii and the TV flickered to life, the familiar menu of the console flashing in front of them. After the  Mario Kart Wii opening started playing, he impatiently clicked the A button three times to go straight to the main menu of the game, selecting the two player versus option before the character select screen came on. "How many races?"

"Thirty-two." Tsukishima had a completely straight face, but there was no way to tell if he was being serious or not.

"Tsukki, we'll be sitting here for two hours!"

"I need to take my mind off everything, and getting hit with turtle shells for two hours straight is the perfect way to do it." Tsukishima had that element of snark in his voice like he always did, but Yamaguchi had known him long enough so that it didn't matter much.

"Okay!"

They both chose their characters - Tsukishima was Waluigi, Yamaguchi was Koopa Troopa- and selected thirty-two races when they got to the settings screen. It was the first time that Yamaguchi had ever played a thirty-two-race Mario Kart round in his entire life.

And for at least an hour after that, everything seemed normal. Not only that, but it was also pretty fun. Tsukishima had been being sarcastic, but he was right: Mario Kart did an amazing job at distracting them from everything awkward that had happened over the course of the day.

If the two of them weren't both vying for first place, if might have been considered relaxing.

In the end, though, almost two hours later, Tsukishima ended up taking first, if only by nine points. They were neck and neck almost the whole time, until on Coconut Mall, the very last race, when Yamaguchi got pelted with two spiny shells in the same lap, giving him a fifth-place finish while Tsukishima took the lead. It wasn't exactly fair, but it was Mario Kart.

"Okay, so _maybe_ it isn't just beginners luck." Yamaguchi chuckled, as the results screen showed Waluigi standing on top of the podium.

"I'm not a beginner anymore, though, am I?" Tsukishima smirked, putting his Wii remote on the desk as he stretched his arms above his head. "I've played Mario Kart Wii at least three times now."

"Yeah, I guess." Yamaguchi stood up and opened the door. "I think my mom got home and made dinner while we were in here."

"Wait a sec." Tsukishima paused on his way to put his Wii remote in the bin next to the TV. "Close the door, I need to tell you something. It's what I was texting you about and what I was telling my brother earlier. You ought to know."

"Um, okay." Yamaguchi closed the door again and stood in front of it. "What is it?"

"Remember when we were trying to get off the roof?"

"Yeah, you jumped off and we - we fell." Something clicked in Yamaguchi's mind when he said that. He realized what had actually happened to some extent, and while he didn't know everything, he had a pretty good idea about it.

And it was something he _really_ didn't want to hear.

"Right." Tsukishima's eyes narrowed. "I was thinking about that when I got home, and I tried testing a few things out, and basically…" He sighed, looking down at the ground as he tossed the Wii remote into the basket. "My powers are gone."

"What?" Yamaguchi's eyes widened. He had been right, as much as he didn't want to be, but that didn't make it any less painful to hear.

"I must have tried to get something to work maybe a hundred times, but nothing did."

"I-I'm sorry."

"What are you apologizing for?"

"Tsukki, this is all my fault."

"What? No, it's not." Tsukishima stood up and walked over to the door. "We can talk about this later."

"Okay." Yamaguchi gave one slow nod, opening the door to let him through before walking through it himself, shutting the door tightly behind him.

As he walked down the stairs, his mind only raced faster. How was something like this even possible? How were they going to fix it? Was there even a way to do that?

For probably the hundredth time today, he found himself completely stumped, with absolutely no idea where to go from here.

Dinner started once the two of them got down the stairs and entered the kitchen, and it was probably the most uneventful thing to happen all day. It started with Yamaguchi's mother making a joke about not wanting to disturb their little game and wondering if they were going to come down for dinner at all. After that, it was fairly quiet for most of the meal; no one at the table was one for small talk when there was food waiting to be eaten. After most everyone had finished, Yamaguchi's parents started asking Tsukishima the standard parent questions, as it were. They covered practically everything, from how he was doing to how his parents were doing to how his brother was doing to how high school was going and almost everything in between, and it sounded more like an interview than an after-dinner conversation. Tsukishima ended up saying something that made Yamaguchi's father chuckle and remember some story from his "superhero days", as it were, which he spent maybe ten minutes telling in full.

"And that's the story of what happened the first time I went to Tokyo!" His eyes brightened as he looked up. "Hey, the second time I went to Tokyo, I was twenty, and I -"

"Speaking of which!" Yamaguchi's mother cut him off before he could tell another long and fairly boring story and looked at the two boys sitting across the table. "What did you two do today?"

"Oh, um…" Tsukishima paused, biting his lip as he tried to think of the right thing to say without giving it away.

"Can we talk about it later?" Yamaguchi cut in, "It's a pretty long story."

His father laughed. "Well, I can't wait to hear it!"

Yamaguchi tried to smile, not only trying to convince his parents that everything was okay, but also trying to convince himself. Because they were going to figure this out, and it would all be back to normal in a day or two.

Right?

"You both look pretty tired." His mother smiled fondly. "It seems like it's going to be quite the tale."

Maybe it wasn't in the way she meant, but "quite the tale" would be a pretty good description of what had happened.

After all that, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi went back upstairs for another hour, which was mostly comprised of silence. Neither of them really knew what to say.

"Do you think we should tell your parents?" Tsukishima eventually asked.

"They would probably know more than we do." Yamaguchi shrugged. "My mom's probably going to kill me, but if that's the price for getting this sorted out, then I'm willing to pay it."

"You're caring about this way too much."

"Don't I care about everything too much, Tsukki?" Yamaguchi grinned. "They'll probably have at least an idea of what to do."

Tsukishima nodded, looking out the window into the slowly-darkening evening sky. "Okay."

After sitting there for another twenty minutes, they somehow managed to start a little bit of a conversation, talking about school and various other things associated with it. They were able to talk for a while, but they both knew that whatever they were talking about was just a cover for the nervousness and fear lying underneath.

Eventually, Tsukishima was he one to stand up and start walking towards the door. "Come on. The longer we wait to do anything, the longer it's going to eat at me."

"Okay," Yamaguchi said, nodding as he walked towards the door.

When they got downstairs, Yamaguchi's parents were sitting on the couch, watching the local news. His mother smiled at them when they got into the living room.

"So did you guys finally formulate the perfect way to tell the story?" She said.

"Um, kinda." Yamaguchi looked up at Tsukishima expectantly, and they both nodded at roughly the same time.

"Could I ask you something?" Tsukishima asked.

Yamaguchi's mother's face fell as she realized the seriousness that had come over the two boys standing in front of her. "Of course. Would you like to go in another room or anything?"

Tsukishima paused, before looking at Yamaguchi briefly. "Do you care?"

Yamaguchi shook his head. "I can stay out here, Tsukki, it's fine."

Tsukishima nodded once, a firm but slow nod.

"All right, then." Yamaguchi's mother smiled as she stood up. "Tadashi-chan, you can hang out here with your father if you want."

"Okay." Yamaguchi took his mother's place on the couch as she took Tsukishima into the kitchen.

"What happened today?" His father asked, not looking away from the TV. "You've seemed a little out of it since we've seen you."

"Not much." Yamaguchi sighed, looking up at the TV to see a little brown cat crawling around the street in the background while a reporter talked about a robbery in Yukigaoka.

"You know what I've realized over the years?" His father turned away to look at him. "There's always that one mission that comes when you least expect it. The one that tells you that it's not all fun and games, and that this life is a dangerous one. It didn't happen to me until I was nineteen, and even then, it was like a punch in the stomach." He smiled. "Does that sound familiar at all?"

Yamaguchi nodded, still looking up at the TV, where the cat had left the shot and all that was left was the stone-faced reporter finishing her broadcast before it transitioned to the weather report. It was supposed to be sunny all week, with temperatures a little warm for late May, but pretty nice nonetheless.

"That moment happens to everybody," his father continued, "Trust me. It's probably even happened to Team Tokyo by now."

Team Tokyo was the megalopolis' equivalent of the Miyagi Duo, and they were probably still in high school, too. They'd started young, when Yamaguchi was ten, due to an unfortunate accident that had happened a few years prior. Yamaguchi had always looked up to them; they'd always done an amazing job no matter what they were doing, and they seemed practically flawless.

Completely unlike Yamaguchi, especially after today.

"If you're scared, you have every right to be." His father looked back up at the TV. "That fear makes it fun for some people. I know that's the kind of person your mother was. She was a risk-taker, and everything was an adrenaline rush for her." He chuckled. "I could barely keep up with the sheer amount of energy she had most of the time." He wrapped one arm around his son's shoulder in a hug. "But I think you're like me. You're afraid of all the possibilities and what could happen, and that's okay."

"I'm not really afraid, though." Yamaguchi frowned, dragging his knees up to his chest and putting his feet on the couch. "It's more like I'm feeling guilty for something I could have changed."

His father gave a sad smile. "You're not perfect. Nobody is. And you can't go back in time and change things. All you have is right now to make things better later."

"But I might have just made it so I can't even do that," Yamaguchi said into his knees. It was a thought he didn't want to consider, but it was definitely a possibility. If Tsukishima's powers were gone now, and there was no way to get them back, then he couldn't really be part of the Miyagi Duo anymore, and Yamaguchi would have to find someone else to take his place. And Yamaguchi wasn't sure there was anyone who could do that without leaving the Tsukishima-sized hole gaping wide open.

Before he knew it, he found himself blinking back tears, trying to wipe his eyes with the front of his shirt before pressing them against his knees when that didn't work. God, now was _not_ the time to be crying.

He ignored the voice in his head for the first time today and degenerated into a pile of sobbing and emotions he couldn't explain on the couch. The only other people in the entire house were his parents and his best friend, he didn't care what he was doing at this point.

"What happened?" Yamaguchi looked up to see Tsukishima running into the room, eyes wide, Yamaguchi's mother following close behind.

"I'm fine," Yamaguchi said, sitting up and taking a few deep breaths. "It's just been a long day. That's all." He smiled up at Tsukishima. "So what did my mom say?"

"I'm sure he can tell you in a little bit, honey." Yamaguchi's mother smiled. "You're exhausted, you just need to relax a little."

Yamaguchi's eyes widened. "Is it bad?"

"That's a matter of opinion." Tsukishima shrugged.

"You guys should go watch a movie or gossip or something!" Yamaguchi's father grinned. "You know, this is technically a sleepover, it should be fun!"

"Uh, okay." Yamaguchi looked up at Tsukishima. "We can watch Jurassic Park again."

"We can watch something you want to watch, if you want," Tsukishima said, "I don't even know what kind of movies you like."

"Tsukki, have you ever seen Summer Wars?" Yamaguchi stood up, leading the way back upstairs to his bedroom.

"No, never heard of it." Tsukishima shook his head.

"Are you serious?" Yamaguchi grinned. "It's one of my favorite movies of all time, you have to watch it!"

"Okay, then we can watch that." Tsukishima stuffed his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt as the two of them made their way back into Yamaguchi's bedroom.

Yamaguchi walked over to the TV, grabbing a DVD off the bottom shelf of his bookshelf, which housed his collection of movies and video games while books took up the other three shelves. After carefully inserting the disc into the DVD player, he sat down on the floor and looked up at the TV, Tsukishima following suit.

They sat next to each other watching the movie for the next two hours, during which the sky got dark and the screen became the only source of light in the room, besides the full moon high in the sky outside the window, which was dim in comparison to the bright TV screen. About halfway through the movie, at around 10:30, Yamaguchi's mother came into the room to say goodnight, but made sure that they knew they could wake her up if they needed anything. After that, they continued the movie, almost falling asleep despite all the tension and action on screen. When it was over, they'd barely registered that the credits had started to roll and were leaning on each other, eyes barely staying open.

"So?" Yamaguchi said quietly, slowly sitting up to turn off the TV, "Did you like it, Tsukki?"

"It was pretty good." Tsukishima sat up, blinking a few times. "Although if I wasn't so exhausted,  I'd be picking the plot apart right now."

"Can you tell me what my mom told you now?" Yamaguchi grinned.

"No, she told me to wait until tomorrow morning."

"Why?"

"She said you wouldn't want to hear it."

"All that does is make me want to know what 'it' is." Yamaguchi frowned. "Seriously though, is it bad?"

"I think so, yes."

"Did she tell you what you can do about all this?"

"Yeah."

"Did it have anything to do with me?"

Tsukishima paused before he slowly nodded.

"Then what was it?" Yamaguchi gave a small smile. "I mean, if I have anything to do with it, then I should be able to know, right?"

"Okay." Tsukishima looked down at the floor. "Now that my powers are gone, I can't exactly be a real superhero anymore, right? So she said that the best thing would be for both of us to take a break until we can figure this out. She also said that she'll talk to the mission briefing lady and tell her not to call us so we dont get tempted to do anything stupid. I don't think it'll take more than a few days, and stuff only happens once every week and a half around here, so I don't think it'll be that big of a deal. But we're basically on hiatus until everything's all right again."

"What?" Yamaguchi's eyes were wide. "Why did she -" He paused mid-sentence. Of course his mother wanted him off the job for a few days. She was probably the most overprotective parent in the entire neighborhood, and what could he be doing that was more dangerous than this? "But what if -?"

"Do you honestly think I haven't thought of what-if?" Tsukishima let out a small chuckle. "This has gone a different way every time I've thought about it, and almost anything's possible. I've definitely thought about what-ifs." He sighed, looking up at the ceiling. "That doesn't mean I like any of the possibilities, because I don't. I mean, I've wanted vacation time for a while, but…"

"But not like this," Yamaguchi finished. He'd wanted a break, too; Things got stressful sometimes, and all he really needed was a week or two where he could just go along without worrying about anything outside of his normal life. But having it forced upon him under practically the worst circumstances possible wasn't the kind of break he had in mind. "I'm really sorry."

"About what? You didn't do anything wrong."

"That thing on the roof could have gotten me instead of you, and the only reason you were even there was because I wasn't strong enough to stop it myself."

"Do you even hear yourself right now?" Tsukishima's eyes narrowed. "You couldn't control any of that."

"I know, but I still feel like crap."

"So do I, if I'm going to be completely honest here."

They both sighed, looking out the window at the navy blue sky, dotted here and there with patches of gray clouds. It was almost silent despite being 11:30 on a Friday night, and the only noises they were able to hear were their heartbeats and their shallow and quiet breathing. The moon was like a beacon in the sky, seeming to shine even brighter now that everything else was turned off.

"Hey, can I ask you something?" Tsukishima tilted his head.

"Yeah," Yamaguchi said.

"Why were you crying downstairs?"

"It's nothing, really." Yamaguchi chuckled. "Don't worry about it!"

"It doesn't seem like nothing."

"Tsukki, I don't want you to worry about it."

"What would I worry about? You know I'm not a worrier."

"I don’t know, just stuff, I guess."

"Like what _kind_ of stuff?"

Yamaguchi chuckled before looking down at his feet. "I was thinking about what would happen if this didn't sort itself out in time. Like if it takes three weeks or more, and everything just happens all at once and there's nobody there to take over for us. Eventually, we would have to get back to it." He was talking too much. Something was going to come out that he didn't want to say. "Basically, what I'm saying is that I'm scared about what'll happen if you can't figure this out and you have to stop for good. Either I'll have to find somebody else to take your place, or I'll have to keep going alone, and I don't want to do that. I know it sounds kind of stupid, but-" He was cut off by his own yawn. "I think of weird things when I'm tired, you know? I think I just need to sleep on it and I'll be able to think clearly in the morning."

Tsukishima only nodded, turning back towards the window.

The spare futon was already in the room; it rarely ever left it, since Tsukishima slept over so much now that it was almost a waste of energy to move it out just to move it back in again three days later.

After they had both finished getting ready, they lay down on their respective beds - well, it was more like a plop. They were both exhausted; they didn't have the energy to be graceful about anything.

Unsurprisingly, Yamaguchi found that he couldn't get to sleep for a while. Eventually, he just decided to look up at the blank white ceiling above his head and try to get his mind off the day's events.

Which didn't work.

Unlike when he was playing Mario Kart or watching the movie earlier, there was nothing to distract him at midnight. It was completely silent, and there was nothing he could look at to make him think about something else. It was just him and his own guilt.

This wasn't the first time he hadn't been able to sleep before, of course. The night before his first day of middle school came to mind, along with his ninth birthday, for some odd reason. The key was that whenever he couldn't sleep, his parents had always known just the way to make him sufficiently tired again, and it usually worked. They had a whole bunch of remedies, including reading a boring book and trying to remember everything he did that day.

The one trick that always worked was getting up and grabbing a drink of water from the kitchen, surprisingly enough. The others were fine and all, but this one was always involved somewhere along the line.

The only hard part about that one was that most of the time, he didn't want to get out of bed in the first place.

He sighed, sitting up as quietly as he could, only to see a light shining up from the floor. Squinting his eyes to adjust to the sudden brightness, he saw that the light was coming from the screen of a tablet, which illuminated Tsukishima's face in the darkness of the room. The rest of the room was barely visible as it blended into black in contrast to the screen.

"You're still awake?" Tsukishima turned around when the floor creaked as Yamaguchi put his weight on it. He still had his glasses on.

"Yeah." Yamaguchi chuckled. "I was just getting some water." He shrugged. "I don't know, it usually helps me sleep. I could get you some if you want."

"I'm fine," Tsukishima said, looking back down at his tablet.

"Okay." Yamaguchi stood up fully and walked over to the door, pausing to turn around just before he opened it. "Hey, um, Tsukki?"

"Yeah?"

"I know I've been saying this once a minute lately, but I'm really sorry about today."

"Stop apologizing. You sound like a broken record."

"But I-"

"It's okay. Really."

"It's pretty obvious that it's not."

"It's good enough." Tsukishima sat up and put the tablet off to the side. It still glowed like a torch through the darkness of the room. "Nobody's dead, and it's only going to be like this for a few days." His voice got distinctly softer during the last part, almost like he was trying to make himself believe what was coming out of his mouth, and he took a deep breath right after he finished.

There was a moment of tranquil silence after that, both of them staring into each other's eyes. If the eyes were the windows to the soul like the saying went, their souls were both filled with the same thing: fear, sadness, and other negative emotions hidden behind a slowly crumbling wall.

"Dammit." Tsukishima lay on his back, looking up at the ceiling. "You're right."

"What?" Yamaguchi asked.

"It isn't really okay. I've been trying to tell myself this whole time that it's nothing, but it's not."

"Yeah."

"I don't know what's going to happen from here, and it's terrifying." Tsukishima looked down at the ground as his voice got infinitely quieter again. "What if you're right again? What if this never sorts itself out?"

Yamaguchi took his hand off the doorknob. "You okay?"

"Not really."

"Oh."

"But that's not the point." Tsukishima took another breath, although this one was much more shallow. "I'll get over it." He shut his eyes tight before covering them with his hands. "I don't want this to be over, okay?"

Yamaguchi sighed, walking away from the door to sit down on the futon next to him. "Me, neither."

Tsukishima sat up again, taking another breath as he rubbed his eyes. He kept his eyes practically locked on the ground, but Yamaguchi could see that they were still slightly red.

"Tsukki, were you -?"

"Yeah. I was a mess ten minutes ago, I'm surprised you didn't hear it. I eventually just started reading something to stop myself."

Yamaguchi gave a tiny smile. "Well, there's a first time for everything."

"I guess," Tsukishima mumbled, half under his breath.

"I won't judge you." Yamaguchi laughed."Did you see me earlier?"

He didn't quite know how it happened, or when exactly he got the idea, but in a weird split-second decision that he didn't remember making, he found himself wrapping Tsukishima in what was quite possibly the tightest hug he'd ever given him. Yes, this was probably tighter than that congratulatory hug after middle school graduation. And besides, like everything else today this was different. And after sitting there stiff and startled for a second or two, Tsukishima hugged him back.

They sat there like this for maybe two minutes, not daring to say a word. The silence now was just as valuable as the conversation they had been having earlier. This was almost like a reassurance that the two of them were always going to be a team, just like they already had been. It had worked pretty well for the past few years, so why stop now?

There was no reason to stop. They'd find a way to get over this and keep going. And even if everything else crashed, burned, or ended in any sort of disaster, they'd always have each other.

It was a nice thought.

Yamaguchi wasn't sure who ended up falling asleep first, or when he finally nodded off, but before he knew it, he was lying on his back on the futon, fast asleep, dreaming about the better days that were sure to come once the sun rose in the morning.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay but real talk, Summer Wars is like my favorite movie EVERRR.
> 
> I'm on tumblr @violinist-tsukki if you want to check that out!


	5. Reverie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's a short chapter, but I wanted the big thing that happens next chapter to happen... y'know, _next chapter_ , so have lil Tsukki being adorkable. I just need to post this before I regret it. And yes, I did add Iwaoi into the tags. They come in later.

_"Crap!"_

_Then came the little ploomp as Tsukishima fell onto the pile of pillows for what seemed like the thirtieth time._

_It was a cold and rainy December afternoon, roughly a month after Yamaguchi turned twelve and Tsukishima had officially agreed to be a part of the Miyagi Duo with him in a few years._

_And at present, the weather wasn't the kind you could go outside in without a winter coat and an umbrella, so they had resorted to staying in Yamaguchi's bedroom, trying to practice and strengthen their powers. After all, even if they weren't going to start being actual superheroes until college - which is what Yamaguchi's mother wanted, although they were trying to convince her to let them start sometime in high school - it was always better to be stronger when college came around._

_Tsukishima had been jumping off the bed for maybe the last fifteen minutes, trying to stay in the air for a second or two. Needless to say, gravity kept winning, and each and every time, he fell back to the floor, only landing on his feet maybe half the time._

_"Okay, I'll get it next time." He stood right back up, like he had the last thirty times._

_Yamaguchi was spinning around in the desk chair, trying to hide a fit of giggles. He wasn't good at the whole flying thing, either. He had just done all the jumping off the bed stuff when he was nine instead of right now._

_"Do you have any ideas?" Tsukishima asked, "Because it's pretty obvious that what I'm doing now isn't working."_

_Yamaguchi shrugged. "I have a trick, but it's kind of dumb."_

_"Does it work?"_

_"Yeah, I guess so."_

_"Then it's not dumb. What is it?"_

_Yamaguchi took a deep breath before continuing. "Basically, you just think to yourself that you're weightless and… I don't know, feel it, I guess." He chuckled. That sounded even dumber than he thought it would. "It usually works for me." Even if it only worked for a scant few seconds at a time._

_Tsukishima nodded, stepping up onto the bed again, before closing his eyes. That was something he hadn't done before._

_"I can do this," he whispered, probably to himself, "I'm weightless." The faintest hint of a smile appeared on his face as he stepped off the edge of the bed._

_For a second, everything was quiet and still. His back foot hovered an inch or two off the side of the bed as he almost seemed to stand there, suspended in midair. His eyes were still closed, his expression completely calm._

_And then, he fell right back down to the floor, landing in a squat before he lost his balance and rolled right onto his face._

_Yamaguchi had to give every bit of self-control he had not to burst into laughter._

_"Was that it?" Tsukishima sat right back up again, eyes wide. “It felt different this time, was that what’s supposed to happen?”_

_Yamaguchi only gave one slow nod._

_“I’m going to do it again.” Tsukishima stood up again, stretching his arms over his head as he did it. “I think I know what I’m supposed to do now.” He stepped up onto the bed again, closing his eyes just like he did last time. “It has to be silent, otherwise I’m going to lose focus and fall on my face again.”_

_He took a few deep breaths before stepping off the side of the bed again, keeping his eyes shut tight. His mouth was slightly open, and after he stepped off, his breathing got shallow as he got to the same place he got before, with his back foot only a tiny distance from the edge of the bed._

_And then, after a second or two, he brought it in towards him, looking like he was taking a tentative step through the air. He took another step before he stopped, a smirk forming on his face, before he slowly opened his eyes again._

_“W-what the -?” He looked down at the ground below him before he broke out in an astonished smile. “Yamaguchi, do you see this? This is amazing!"_

_Yamaguchi nodded, taking another spin in the desk chair. He was tempted to start hovering in the air, too, but the last thing anyone needed was both of them zipping around the room at the same time. They would bump into each other, and that would be possibly more painful than all the times Tsukishima had fallen flat on his face over the past fifteen minutes._

_"Now you try." Tsukishima smirked in Yamaguchi's direction. "I haven't seen you try this once."_

_"Tsukki, I'm going to fall and break something." Not to mention that Tsukishima had been up there for almost a minute and the longest that Yamaguchi had ever gone was twelve seconds._

_"No, you're not. I've already landed on my face ten times today and I'm fine." Tsukishima closed his eyes again. "It's just like you said. All you have to do is feel it, you know?"_

_"Yeah, but that only works for a few seconds when I do it and you've been up there for like a minute."_

_"Then don't think about it."_

_"What?"_

_"You heard me. Don't." Tsukishima dropped back to the ground again, landing on his feet this time, before taking a seat on the bed. "I just closed my eyes and tried to relax and see myself in the air, and I'd say that went well."_

_"Okay, okay, I'll try it." Yamaguchi giggled. "This isn't going to work."_

_He inhaled deeply before he shut his eyes, feeling his heartbeat get the slightest bit slower as he felt the tiny rush of air through his hair and started to levitate an inch off the ground._

* * *

 

"Hey, Yamaguchi."

Yamaguchi stretched his arms above his head, still refusing to completely get up.

"Yamaguchi, wake up."

He slowly cracked his eyes open, sitting up as he snapped back to the present.

And realized he had been hovering a foot above the futon just as he fell onto it with an oomph.

"Are you okay?" Tsukishima asked, eyes narrowed.

"Yeah." Yamaguchi chuckled. "I'm fine."

"That was weird. Like, I looked over at you five minutes ago and you were just floating there."

"Oh." That was embarrassing. It wasn't the first time he'd found himself hovering above the ground - he wasn't exactly well-versed in controlling his powers, even though he'd had them for his entire life - but it was the first time anyone else had seen him do it. And he apparently did it in his sleep, too. Great.

"Does that usually happen?" Tsukishima asked.

"Sometimes, like when I'm thinking really hard about something. It's happened when I've been doing homework before." Yamaguchi yawned. "What time is it?"

"10:53." Tsukishima briefly turned on his phone to check the time before setting it down next to him again.

“Wow. I guess I slept in.”

“Yeah. I only woke up an hour ago.”

They looked at each other for a few seconds, realizing exactly what today would bring for them. It was day one of being completely normal. No calls, no missions, no being the heroes they’d gotten used to being over the past few months. It all seemed incredibly boring, even more so considering it was necessary.

"So, hiatus day one." Tsukishima shrugged. "So far, it's been a lot of sleeping."

"Yeah." Yamaguchi grinned. "I don't really mind, though."

"Yeah, it's a good thing this prefecture doesn't have as many people."

"I've heard that in Tokyo, they get multiple calls a day."

"That's ridiculous."

"I know." Yamaguchi smiled, looking out the window at the overcast, slightly-drizzling sky. The weather report the previous night had been completely wrong, but chances were that he was probably going to be inside all day, so did it matter?

They were interrupted soon afterward by the ringtone of Yamaguchi’s phone, buzzing away on the nightstand across the room. As Yamaguchi practically leapt across the room to get the call before it went to voicemail, he didn’t care to look at the caller ID, even though it was a name on the screen rather than just another number.

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s Suga.” His voice sounded like a weird oxymoronic combination of calm and tense on the other end. “I’m glad you picked up.”

“Oh. Hi.”

“Do you have a minute?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“Good.” Suga sighed on the other end. “Turn on your TV to channel seven, and then maybe I can attempt to understand everything.”

“Okay.” Yamaguchi leaned over to grab the remote, pressing the power button as he pointed it at the TV. What was Suga even trying to understand?

As Yamaguchi pressed the button labeled seven on the remote, the answer became painfully obvious, since he couldn’t understand it, either.

The screen showed a reporter standing in the street in front of a block of skyscrapers in downtown Sendai. In any other situation, the street would have been filled with cars zooming around to get to their various destinations in the city, but this time, there wasn’t a car to be found. The doors of every shop on the street were shut, and there wasn’t a single person walking along the sidewalk, even though it was practically 11:00 on a Saturday morning.

A thunderstorm was brewing over the city streets, dark clouds completely blocking any sign of the late-morning sun. The sky lit up with a bolt of lightning, going dark again afterward with a booming clap of thunder. It was raining cats and dogs at the same time, huge puddles forming in the middle of the empty streets, but it was raining outside Yamaguchi’s window, too. It was the lightning that was the weird part.

The strangest thing about it was that it looked like a person was standing on top of one of the tallest buildings that could still be seen by the camera, dressed in all black, with a black mask covering their eyes.

“What’s going on?” Yamaguchi asked quietly into the phone, putting down the remote as he stared at the TV in a mix of fascination and terror.

“I don’t know,” Suga said, “It’s weird, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, I’m not sure how any of this works, but isn’t this something you and Tsukishima are trained to deal with?”

“Uh, yeah.” Yamaguchi paused. How was he going to explain that he couldn’t be there without saying the exact reason why? “We’d be there if we could. But we can’t.”

“What?” Suga chuckled. “Do you guys have weekends off or something?”

“No. It’s about yesterday. Something happened that we couldn’t control, and we just aren’t in a position to fight anything right now.” Yamaguchi sighed. “Sorry I can’t explain it right now. It’s a long story.”

“That’s okay. I’m sure you can say more about it later.”

“Okay. I will.”

“It’ll all be back to normal soon. I mean, I’m sure you guys have dealt with worse than this.”

“Yeah."

"So is there anything you can do about it?" Suga asked.

"I don't think so."

"Oh."

"Sorry."

"No, it's fine. Whatever happens happens, I know. Things have been weird for everyone lately." Suga paused for a second, saying something on the other end that Yamaguchi couldn't hear. "Hey, I've gotta go. See you tomorrow!"

"Um, Suga-san?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks. For telling me. I wouldn't have known otherwise."

"No problem." Suga laughed through the phone. "The part that was the most off about this was seeing that you two weren't there, to be honest. You have an astounding track record when it comes to these things."

"Oh. Uh, thanks."

"You're welcome. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Okay, bye."

Yamaguchi pressed the red phone icon, ending the call as he sat the phone back on his nightstand. As he turned around to look at the TV again, he saw Tsukishima sitting on his knees on the futon, eyes wide as he took in everything onscreen.

"This isn't supposed to happen," he said, his voice barely a whisper, "We're supposed to be there right now."

Whatever he said next was too quiet to be heard as it was completely drowned out by another boom of thunder from the TV.

"Well, then!" The masked figure's voice boomed on screen as he walked out right to the edge of the building he was standing on with a smirk. "I've waited ten minutes, and I'm getting a little impatient. So make sure to listen well and tell all your friends, because you never really know who you're talking to."

"What is this guy talking about?" Tsukishima asked.

"If the Miyagi Duo's watching this right now," the figure continued with a cocky grin, "What happened yesterday wasn't a fluke. That little thing you dealt with was following orders - my orders. After all, how else would I be able to do this?" He laughed as a few more lightning bolts pierced the sky. "If you want to settle this once and for all, be ready at 2:00 on Friday." He smiled again, the smile filled with pure malice. "Don't worry, I'll give you a hint as to where I'll be: it's closely related to where everything went down yesterday."

And with that, the figure turned around and walked over to the other edge of the building, invisible to the cameras once he got far enough away. Even the reporter on screen was stunned into complete silence as she stared up at the building.

"No." Tsukishima looked up at the TV, the color draining from his face with every passing second. "This can't be happening."

Yamaguchi could only stare back at the screen, where the reporter had started talking again, although her voice was shaky. She was talking about how people were cautioned to stay indoors, that's why the streets were empty.

"What are we going to do?" He eventually asked.

"It's not like we can really do anything." Tsukishima crossed his arms in front of him. "Until we get everything back to normal, there's nothing we can do."

"Well…" How was Yamaguchi supposed to counter something like that? That was exactly right, they couldn't do anything about it. But he didn't want to accept that.

The thunderstorm had started to dissipate on TV, leaving only the steady rain as the darker clouds went away. Ever so slowly, people started to come out of the buildings and the news station took a commercial break.

"We have until Friday at 2:00 to figure this out." Tsukishima's eyes narrowed. "I think this was just meant to scare us or something like that. The real plan this guy has is coming later."

Yamaguchi nodded, grabbing the remote and turning off the TV. Now that the storm was over, there was no reason for the reporters to keep talking about it.

"I guess I should head out." Tsukishima stood up with a sigh. "I’m probably going to go home and sleep for the rest of the day.”

“Oh.” Yamaguchi frowned, looking at him as he picked up his bag. “Do you want breakfast? I’m sure my dad cooked something up.”

“No, I’ll get something at home.”

“Are you sure? I mean, you know how my parents are.”

“I don’t need anything. I just need some time to think.”

“Okay.”

They walked down the stairs again, Tsukishima taking the lead, neither of them saying a word.

“Kei-chan, you're leaving already?" Yamaguchi's mother leaned out of the kitchen doorway with a frown. "At least let us give you something to eat before you go."

"It's okay. Really." Tsukishima opened the door, taking a few steps outside before he turned around on the doorstep, looking Yamaguchi right in the eye. "This isn't about you. I mean, it is, but you know what I mean. I just really need to take the rest of the day off."

"Yeah." Yamaguchi nodded.

"You know, you were apologizing so much yesterday but I haven't done that once." Tsukishima looked down at the ground with a faint chuckle.

"Tsukki, you don't have to -"

"I'm sorry."

The corners of Yamaguchi's mouth turned up into a tiny smile. "It's okay."

"Bye."

"See you tomorrow, Tsukki!"

And with that, Tsukishima started on the sidewalk and Yamaguchi went straight back up to his room again. He could eat later.

Once he got back up the stairs, he closed his bedroom door tight, laying down on his bed and looking up at the ceiling once again.

The clock was ticking. With every passing second, it would be closer to Friday, and Yamaguchi still had no idea what to do. And what if things weren't back to normal by then? He would have to do whatever needed to be done entirely on his own. Which was something he'd never done before. And didn't ever want to do, considering he wasn't by any means combat-oriented.

But then there was the other thing that he hadn't thought about yet, that was just entering his mind now. Friday was the first day of the Interhigh prelims. That must have been what the guy on TV was talking about. If Karasuno didn't make it past the first round, they might even be done by 2:00, but what if they did? The upperclassmen had said that this year's team was better than last year's and they actually stood a chance this time around. What would happen if the fight or whatever the guy on TV wanted happened in the middle of the second round? What would happen if it happened when they were playing? Would the rest of the team find out? Would the game be cut short? Would there even be a game at all?

Yamaguchi sighed. Everything had to be figured out by Friday. He didn't want to think of what could happen if it wasn't.

 


	6. Transparency

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone said this chapter was good, so I'm posting it before I realize how bad of an idea it is to be writing the end of it at midnight. Thanks to [Lyss](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyssieaaa) and [Sarah](http://archiveofourown.org/users/I_am_pure_trash_you_know) as always! <333
> 
> OH! Also, in Japanese, Aka (赤) and Midori (緑) mean red and green respectively, corresponding with the mask colors in chapter 2!

Monday was weird. Not good weird, not necessarily bad weird, just weird. That was practically all Yamaguchi could say about it.

As he walked into class after morning practice - which was surprisingly calm besides Tanaka's half-joking cry of "We're all gonna die!" when he ran in fifteen minutes late - it was obvious that everyone knew about the events of the previous day. From the hushed conversations to the worried glances out the window to the clumps of people gathered around smartphones around the room, the entire class radiated an air of awkwardness that Yamaguchi felt tenfold.

At least no one would notice if he showed it.

"And I thought Friday was a pain." Tsukishima rolled his eyes as he sat down, dropping his bag on the ground next to him. "Now that something's gone wrong, there's no way people are ever going to shut up about it."

"I don't know what anybody's said about it," Yamaguchi said, "I haven't checked anything since Saturday."

"The Miyagi Duo hashtag's trending on Twitter." Tsukishima took his phone out and set it on the desk. "And there are a few rumors and theories flying around, along with a couple particularly scathing articles. I checked yesterday."

"So it's bad?"

"You could say that."

"I can't really say I'm surprised." Yamaguchi sighed.

"Yeah, there's a lot of -"

"Tsukishima-kun!" Two of the girls from class - Yamaguchi thought their names were Suzuki and Ishikawa but he wasn't entirely sure - had run across the room to stand in front of the desk.

"Did you see what happened yesterday?" Ishikawa asked, amber eyes wide. She was the shorter of the two girls, and her hair was held in place by a series of barrettes in a rainbow of colors.

"Wasn't it freaky?" Suzuki chimed in. She towered over Ishikawa by roughly ten centimeters, and had a blue jacket tied around her waist.

"Yeah." Tsukishima looked over at his phone on the desk. Yamaguchi knew he was tempted to turn it on. "It was pretty weird."

"What do you think happened?" Ishikawa asked, "Do you have any idea why the MD didn't show up?"

"I'm not sure." Tsukishima shrugged. "I was mostly just surprised at what happened on TV."

That was a flat-out lie. But it wasn't like it mattered.

"Yeah." Ishikawa nodded.

"I was kind of disappointed that they didn't end up being there." Suzuki frowned. "I mean, they're really cute. Especially Midori."

"Midori?" Yamaguchi asked.

"People have started calling them Aka and Midori online and stuff," Ishikawa said, "You know, because their masks are red and green. It's just a name for people to call them by, since no one knows who they are." She turned to Suzuki with a smile. "And Aka's obviously the cuter one."

"Not buying it." Suzuki shook her head and grinned. "Have you seen Midori? He's definitely the cute one."

Yamaguchi could practically see her swoon as he tried his hardest not to blush.

"Uh, no offense." Suzuki giggled.

"None taken." It was barely noticeable, but Tsukishima definitely smirked in Yamaguchi's direction for a split second.

Shortly afterward, the school bell interrupted the conversation and everyone scurried back to their respective seats as their first teacher took control over class 1-4. Yamaguchi practically plopped down in his chair once he got to his desk in the middle of the classroom, barely managing to hang his bag on the hook next to the desk.

After that, school went on pretty much like it normally did. Even though people seemed slightly nervous all day, it was a lot less apparent when the teacher was talking in the front of the room. Before Yamaguchi knew it, it was already lunch.

For the thirty-five minutes they had for lunch, Tsukishima was looking at his phone the entire time, the frown on his face growing deeper with every passing second.

"Hey, Tsukki, what are you doing?" Yamaguchi asked, trying to lean over get a look at what was on the screen.

"Nothing." Tsukishima turned so the phone was hidden from Yamaguchi's eyes before turning it off altogether.

"Really?" Yamaguchi grinned.

"Really." Tsukishima put the phone back in his pocket before turning to his lunch. "I'll tell you after school."

"Then it's not nothing."

Something flashed in Tsukishima's eyes before he sighed. "No, I guess it's not."

"Then what is it?"

Tsukishima sighed. "Shut up, Yamaguchi."

"Sorry, Tsukki."

They stopped talking after that, just eating their lunches in silence for the rest of the short time they had before class started again.

The second half of the day went by just as fast as the first. Even though Yamaguchi spent more time looking up and practically staring through his teachers than actually listening to them talk, it was still some white noise in the background to distract him from everything that was going through his head at the moment.

And then school ended.

After briefly stopping by the club room to change, Yamaguchi found himself walking to the gym with Tsukishima again.

"I read one of the articles at lunch," Tsukishima said after maybe a minute of silence.

"Oh, so _that's_ what you were doing!" Yamaguchi smiled, before  it turned into a frown. "Why didn't you tell me, Tsukki?"

"It was nauseating."

"Was it really that bad?" Yamaguchi asked.

"Yeah. People are the worst."

"I kind of want to read it now."

"Don't. It's not worth it." Tsukishima frowned. "It said a lot of shitty things, but you got off a lot worse than I did."

Yamaguchi looked down at his feet as he walked. "Did it call me useless?"

Tsukishima stopped in his tracks, eyes wide. "At least twice."

"I knew it." Yamaguchi smiled weakly, stopping just outside the door to the gym. "I've been hearing that pretty much since we started. It's not a big deal."

It had been a big deal initially, of course. It was a Saturday night in early April when he'd first heard it. He was watching TV to wind down after the end of his first week of high school and a particularly complicated and tiring job right after school, when a local news reporter had said she was "hoping to see more from him in the future" in a condescending tone, the kind a judge on one of those TV talent shows would use right after a performance that would get a contestant eliminated. That hurt. A lot. Especially considering that he'd worked as hard as he could. And it only happened more often from then on, harsher every time. It was still a punch in the gut every time it happened, but he eventually got used to the pain.

"And it's kind of true, you know?" He continued with a chuckle, "I mean, I've always just found somewhere to hide out while you've done most of the work."

"That's bullshit and you know it." Tsukishima's eyes narrowed. "You can't let that get to you."

"But it's exactly what you were saying." Yamaguchi sighed. "No matter what people have to say about you, whatever they say about me is at least ten times worse."

"Their opinions don't matter. Whatever we've been doing works."

"Not right now, it doesn't!" Yamaguchi didn't care how loud he was. There was barely anyone around.

Tsukishima took a step back before he scowled, looking right at Yamaguchi as he did. "People are cruel. You've probably already realized that from spending so much time around me, but that's not the point. The point is that people aren't going to be happy with anything we do. Sure, they'll be happy when we're saving people, but once it's over, they'll bitch and whine and nitpick both of us to no end, and I'm tired of it, too. "

He stopped for a few seconds, almost like he was trying to catch his breath, before he started again, his voice getting louder in the deafening silence outside the two of them.

"They should be lucky that people like us exist to begin with. They don't have anyone else to protect them besides us, and I like to think we've done a damn good job for the amount of experience we have. Whatever happens, we're the Miyagi Duo, and they're not, so if they want to bitch, they should just try doing what we do. It isn't their place to complain about you being useless or be just plain two-faced whenever I'm involved or whatever they have up their asses whenever we do anything."

Yamaguchi blinked, letting out the breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "Tsukki, I -"

Tsukishima sighed, looking up at the sky. "I just wish that everyone would shut up and leave us the hell alone for once."

And then, complete silence. The two of them just stared at each other, neither of them daring to say a word for fear that they'd make things worse. It eventually started drizzling over their heads, but it wasn't like either one of them really wanted to move.

That had happened far too many times over the past few days, and it had only gotten more awkward every time.

“Let’s go.” Tsukishima nodded in the direction of the gym door after thirty seconds of rain and quiet.

And so they walked in, slowly, trying to make it seem like everything was normal. Like nothing had happened and today was just another day.

But when they got inside, the entire gym fell silent, almost like the two of them had set off a tripwire by going through the doorway. Even Hinata and Kageyama stopped their usual arguing to stare. It was creepy, and Yamaguchi had no idea why it was happening.

“Hey, guys!” Suga waved, possibly a little too enthusiastically for the situation, while Daichi coughed frantically behind him. Slowly, everyone else started talking amongst themselves while they stretched, although it seemed pretty forced.

“Hi,” Yamaguchi said, looking around, “Um, did something happen?”

“Nothing you need to worry about for now.” Suga scratched the back of his head as he chuckled. "You should go stretch, we'll all warm up together in a few minutes. After all, we can't be ready for Friday if we aren't all bringing our A-game now!"

"Uh, right." Tsukishima and Yamaguchi went over to a corner of the gym and started doing their usual stretch routine, relatively close to Ennoshita, Kinoshita, and Narita, who were whispering amongst themselves. Their quiet voices were interspersed with tiny but smug smiles.

Which was what almost everyone was doing at this point. Takeda-sensei was in the corner, going between writing something down and checking his phone, sometimes looking up to talk to Kiyoko, who wouldn't seem to give very long answers to whatever he might have asked her. Daichi and Suga were standing in the middle of the gym, stretching as they looked around at everyone, nervously whispering things to each other that they didn't seem like they wanted people to hear. Even Tanaka and Noya kept their voices low, every so often leaning over to ask Asahi for his opinion on something, to which he would just softly nod or shake his head with a confused look on his face, causing the second-year duo to laugh to themselves. Hinata and Kageyama were the only people talking at normal volume, as they'd begun to continue their argument about who knows what, and their voices boomed in comparison to everyone else's.

It was like everyone was trying to keep a secret.

"Hey, Ennoshita-san?" Yamaguchi asked, leaning over so he could talk to the second-year without being too loud.

"Yeah?" Ennoshita did the same.

"What happened?"

Ennoshita's eyes widened for a brief second before he looked over at Yamaguchi with a tiny frown. "I think Daichi-san and Suga-san are going to go over it."

"Does it have anything to do with me?" Yamaguchi's voice got a little quieter. If it was about him in any way, he didn't exactly want them to catch on that he knew yet.

"Yeah." Ennoshita paused for a few seconds before he nodded. "It's about Tsukishima, too, I think."

"Oh. Thanks."

"You're welcome." Ennoshita smiled before he turned back to Kinoshita and Narita.

Yamaguchi went back to stretching, leaning down to touch his toes - or almost touch them. He had never been that flexible, and since he'd never decided to get into gymnastics or anything like that, it never ended up being a problem.

"Hey, everybody!" Daichi shouted from the center of the gym, "Huddle up around me!"

And with that, everybody who was previously scattered around the floor came jogging into the middle of it.

"According to Takeda-sensei, Ukai-san's going to be a little late," Daichi said, arms crossed, "Something happened at his shop and he couldn't get off work, so it's just us for the time being."

"Which, all in all, isn't the worst thing that could happen," Suga cut in, his trademark grin flashing across his face. "That gives us a little time to talk as a team about…" He paused, looking up at the ceiling in thought, his grin slowly beginning to fade. "A few things."

"Does that mean we're going to ask -?" Hinata's eyes brightened before Kageyama punched him in the shoulder.

"Shut up, dumbass." Kageyama rolled his eyes as he brought his fist back down to his side. "Daichi-san told us not to talk about that before he did."

"Well, we're talking about it now." Daichi shrugged before he looked over at Tsukishima and Yamaguchi. "Normally, Ukai-san would have you two run a few laps around the gym out in the rain for being late for practice, but I can let it slide. Especially now." His eyes narrowed as he said the last two words, like he was about to hatch a weird supervillain plan.

"What do you mean?" Tsukishima asked, narrowing his eyes as well.

"We left the door open a crack so it wouldn't lock up on you, and, well…" Suga frowned. "We heard what you were talking about outside. And if everyone didn't know about you two before, they definitely know now.”

For a few seconds, Yamaguchi froze. He stared straight ahead, practically through Asahi's nose, trying to pretend he didn't hear what had clearly just been said, but it was no use. The entire team knew now, and there was nothing he could do about it.

The lump in his stomach only grew larger as the seconds went by, and he felt like he could faint at any moment.

“I’m sorry this had to come at such a bad time,” Suga continued, before he smiled again, “But we’re here for you guys. If you need anything, ask."

“Oh.” Yamaguchi snapped out of his stupor and looked down at his feet. His hands were probably shaking. “Thanks.”

“Hey...” Hinata said, looking up at Tsukishima and Yamaguchi, “Can we ask you questions and stuff?”

Tsukishima shrugged. “I’ll probably refuse to answer any of your stupid questions, but you’ll probably ask anyway, and I doubt there's a way I'll be able to stop you.”

Hinata stuck his tongue out. “And I used to think the MD was cool!”

Tsukishima scowled. “Do your opinions usually change in two seconds like that or did it just happen this once?”

“It wasn’t two seconds, it was more like ten minutes!”

“It was two seconds ago that you looked like you were going to go full fanboy.” Tsukishima smirked.

“Whatever!”

“I’ve got a few questions, too!” Noya put his hands on his hips and grinned. “Like how the hell did we not notice this before?” He furrowed his brow in thought. “I mean, now that I think about it, it’s not like you’re disguising yourselves all that much.”

“Isn’t that obvious?” Tanaka asked, elbowing Noya in the side as he laughed. “Who’d suspect the biggest asshole we know?”

"Was that how you managed to fool everyone?" Noya turned back to Tsukishima again, the grin on his face growing ever wider as he tried not to laugh hysterically like his partner in crime. "Because damn, it worked!"

After that, he couldn't restrain himself anymore and outright cackled, having to lean on Tanaka for a few seconds to catch his breath. Hinata joined in shortly thereafter, the three of them coming together in a nerve-wracking cocktail of energy and thundering laughter.

"Hey, Yamaguchi." Kageyama was standing in front of him, eyes narrowed as he looked at him.

"Yeah?"

"There are a couple things I want to ask you."

"Oh. Go ahead."

"What kind of powers do you have?" Yamaguchi didn't know Kageyama all too well, but if there was one thing he knew for sure about him, it was that he was always concise and to-the-point about everything, and even now, he was no different.

"Telekinesis, mostly." Yamaguchi scratched the back of his head as he gave Kageyama a nervous smile. "I'm not the best at using or controlling it, though." If yesterday morning was anything to go by.

"Really?" Kinoshita cut in, walking over to join the conversation along with Ennoshita and Narita. "How does that work?"

"I could probably show you, if you want." Yamaguchi shrugged.

The eyes of all four people standing around him widened with curiosity, and he could even see some sort of flash in Kageyama's eyes.

But could he do this? He wasn't used to being the center of attention, and the pressure of everyone looking at him wasn't good for a superpower that required calm and at least slightly rational thought. He would probably lift something into the air for a second or two before he'd completely lose control over it and drop it, and that wouldn't exactly make for a good demonstration.

But he was definitely powerful enough to pull this off. He had to be. After all, right now, he was the only one who could.

He sighed, looking around the gym before focusing his attention on the other people in his little circle. He'd never tried using his powers on people besides himself before; he always thought that he wouldn't be able to do it. But at a time like this, he knew he had to try to push himself to be better than that. After all, you never knew what you could do until you tried it yourself. Everyone else quickly followed his gaze, looking around at each other with no idea what was about to happen.

Yamaguchi put his hands out in front of him, concentrating on the other four and trying to block out everything else. Hinata and Noya's yelling and giggling eventually became just background noise, almost a quiet hum making the basis for everything that was about to happen.

He imagined the rest of his little group rising into the air, not too high, maybe up fifty centimeters or so. The air around him started to get a little colder, and as they started to hover, he felt a blast of cold air rush through his hair as his eyes flickered open ever wider.

Kageyama's eyes widened as he rose up a foot, and it seemed at first like he was very freaked out before he got a handle on what was happening.

The three second-years were definitely surprised, their mouths open in three tiny O's as they floated there, but eventually they started to look like they were having the time of their lives. They all ended up laughing, trying to reach out and high-five each other in mid-air.

"Whoa!" Hinata whirled around at the sound of the laughing second-years, eyes bright once he saw what was going on. Everyone else who wasn't looking quickly followed suit. "Yamaguchi, are you doing that?!"

Yamaguchi nodded slowly, trying not to lose concentration.

"Can I try?" Hinata asked, clasping his hands together in a hopeful gesture in front of him. "I want to go higher than Bakeyama! Pleeease?"

Yamaguchi paused for a second to think, before he moved one of his hands to point at the redhead, who quickly shot up into the air, making his weird trademark noises the whole way up before he stopped rising and grinned down at Kageyama.

"What the hell are you grinning so wide for, dumbass?" Kageyama crossed his arms as he looked up at Hinata, who by now was about fifteen centimeters above him.

"How does it feel to be the short one now, huh?" Hinata stuck out his tongue before he started giggling. "This is so cool! I can't -" He looked back down at Yamaguchi and paused, his eyes growing wide as saucers. "Whoa, Yamaguchi, your eyes are glowing!"

"Really?" Yamaguchi asked. That had never happened before. At least, no one had ever told him that had happened before.

"Yeah," Tanaka said, leaning over to get a better look. Noya quickly followed suit, followed a few seconds later by Tsukishima, whose eyes widened almost as much as Hinata's had. "They look like they're going to shoot lasers out of 'em or something!"

"Oh." Yamaguchi started to smile. This was going much better than he anticipated. Sure, he was getting tired, but that was expected from such a large undertaking. He was definitely doing well.

The hardest part came when he tried to lower everyone down, a few minutes later. He was so exhausted that it would have been much easier to just drop them on the ground, but he really didn't want to hurt anyone. So he put all his energy into making the descent slow, and when they touched down, he finally relaxed again.

"So do you do that a lot?" Noya asked after a ten-second silence.

Yamaguchi shook his head. "This is the first time I've tried using it on people, beside myself."

"Wow." Tanaka's eyes widened. "You're good."

Yamaguchi chuckled. "Thanks."

He hadn't expected everything to go so well. It almost felt easy, and it had gone a lot more smoothly than he thought it would. Obviously, it came at the cost of expending most, if not all, of his energy, but if he got a drink and cooled down for a few minutes, he'd probably be fine.

He didn't realize just how much he'd underestimated how exhausted he was until his vision went fuzzy and the entire world faded to black.

* * *

When Yamaguchi opened his eyes, he didn’t know exactly how much time had gone by. It had probably been only a few minutes or so, but there wasn’t any way to know.

What he did know was that he was looking up at the gym ceiling and into the worried eyes of Kiyoko on his left and Tsukishima on his right.

“You okay?” Tsukishima asked.

“Yeah.” Yamaguchi nodded, starting to sit up. He felt like he was moving in slow motion.

“Don’t get up yet.” Kiyoko seemed to glare at him, although it must have come from a good place. “You should probably stay here for a little bit.”

“What happened?”

“I’m not quite sure.” Kiyoko frowned, looking over at Tsukishima. “I think you could explain it better than I could.”

“I’m pretty sure he already knows exactly what’s going on.” Tsukishima crossed his arms as he glared down at Yamaguchi. “Why did you do that?”

“What are you talking about?” Yamaguchi cocked his head to the side.

“You knew you were pushing yourself harder than you should have, but you went through with it anyway.” Tsukishima crossed his arms, eyes narrowed. “Why the hell would you do that?”

"I -" Yamaguchi sighed. "I don't know." He knew exactly why he had done it, but in this case, a lie was a lot easier than the painful truth.

Tsukishima rolled his eyes before he turned to Kiyoko. "Can we have a minute?"

The third-year paused for a second before she nodded, standing up slowly before she walked over to talk to Daichi about something.

"Okay." Tsukishima crossed his arms. "Yamaguchi, what the fuck?"

"Sorry, Tsukki!" This was probably the first time Yamaguchi had ever heard Tsukishima say the word fuck in his entire life.

"I don't think any amount of 'sorry, Tsukki's is going to change anything right now." Tsukishima's glare only grew more intense, and frankly, it was terrifying. "What the hell were you trying to prove?"

Yamaguchi sighed, sitting up. It had been a few minutes, he was probably fine. "I guess I was just trying to tell myself that I was more powerful than I thought I was. You know, since your powers are gone and I -"

"So this is about me?"

"Sorta...?"

"You _idiot_ ," Tsukishima hissed, "You could have gotten yourself killed."

They were interrupted by the tiny squeak of the door being opened as Coach Ukai walked into the gym, carrying a cup of coffee in one hand and his phone in the other, which he was staring at with ferocity.

“Are you fucking serious?” He asked, earning himself a glare from Takeda-sensei.

“What happened?” Suga asked, eyes narrowed in confusion.

“The goddamned MD didn’t show up again,” Ukai complained, “What the hell have they been doing?”

“Ukai-kun, you’re at a school,” Takeda-sensei grumbled, “Could you please turn off your sailor mouth?”

“I can’t make any promises.”

“What happened?” Daichi asked.

“Something happened at Seijoh around an hour ago.” Ukai looked back down at his phone. “It was the same guy from yesterday, believe it or not. And it was more empty threats. It’s like this guy is just taunting the MD for not being there.”

“Shit,” Tsukishima muttered under his breath.

“Wait, things are actually happening here?” Tanaka’s eyes widened. “That’s two frickin’ days this week where something went down!”

“And two days where the MD wasn’t there to do anything about it,” Ukai said, “They’ve gotta have a good reason for skipping out.”

Daichi turned to look at Suga for a few seconds, before the two of them nodded, practically in unison. They obviously had an idea, but Yamaguchi had no idea what it was.

"How about you ask them yourself?" Suga asked, turning towards Tsukishima and Yamaguchi.

They could have asked. They could have done at least that before telling yet another person the one piece of information _that no one was supposed to know in the first place._

"Suga-san, are you crazy?" Tsukishima hissed, trying to keep his teeth clenched together.

“I’m sorry!” Suga said, “He’s the only one who doesn’t know about all this, and let’s be honest, there’s no way we could have kept it a secret.”

Ukai whirled around to face them, his eyes growing wider with every second. "Oh, _hell_ , no."

"You two haven't actually told us the reason why you weren't there," Daichi said, frowning as he looked over at Tsukishima and Yamaguchi.

"And I would highly prefer if no one knew that at all." Tsukishima crossed his arms.

"People are already getting suspicious," Kageyama said, "And if you don't want the stream of backlash to drag you under, I'd strongly recommend spilling it."

As everyone started talking again, Ukai just looked over at Takeda-sensei with an expression of pure horror on his face that almost made Yamaguchi giggle, if things weren’t about to go straight to hell.

"Could someone please explain to me what the hell is going on here?" Ukai ran his hands through his hair as he closed his eyes.

"Well, since there's no way to deny it anymore -" Tsukishima stopped mid-sentence to glare at everyone else, who immediately took a step back. "Yamaguchi and I are the MD, and it doesn't get much simpler than that." The over-enunciation in his voice only increased the supremely-pissed-off nature he gave off.

"Well, that certainly makes things interesting." Ukai's eyes widened.

"And there's definitely a good reason that we haven't been wherever we're supposed to be, I just don't want that information to be out there.” Tsukishima shrugged before he turned to Ukai. “What happened at Seijoh anyway?”

“The guy has electricity powers, apparently. That’s new,” Ukai said, “Other than that, he just did some more threatening and shook a few things up.” He grinned. “There was an interview, though. You all should watch it sometime, it’s funny.”

“Wait, electricity powers?” Tsukishima asked.

“Yeah.”  Ukai looked over at him, seeming slightly confused. “In the interview, one of the guys they talked to said that they looked a lot like -” He paused for a second, letting out a sigh. “Well, _your_ powers, I guess.”

“Oh, _shit_.”

When Yamaguchi looked up at him, Tsukishima was almost as white as a sheet, staring straight ahead, almost through the wall on the other side of the gym, eyes wide.

"Wait." Noya seemed to realize, or at least guess what was going on around the same time Yamaguchi did. "Everything makes a lot more sense now."

"Huh?" Tanaka asked, narrowing his eyes in confusion. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"No, he's right," Kageyama said, before he turned to Noya with a frown. "If you and I are thinking the same thing."

"Ohhhh!" Hinata's eyes brightened as he seemed to catch on.

"I still have no idea what the hell you're all talking about," Tanaka said.

"Ryuu, listen for a sec." Noya put his hands on his hips. "Yamaguchi was the one to volunteer to do a demonstration, remember?"

Tanaka paused for a second before he nodded.

"And apparently, he did more than he could normally and probably safely do but knew that he was doing it," Kageyama said.

"Add that to the fact that the bad guy has fancy-schmancy superpowers that happen to be remarkably similar to Tsukishima's and you really only come to one conclusion." Noya held up one finger in the air.

Everyone stayed silent for a few seconds, thinking about everything that Noya just said, before Daichi's mouth opened in a tiny O as he looked over at Tsukishima.

"Your powers are gone." He said it as a statement, but it came out like a question, a theory that needed confirmation. “And somehow this guy has them.”

Tsukishima paused for a second before he sighed, looking down at the ground. "Yeah. I don’t know for sure, but it seems like too much of a coincidence to be anything else."

"Shit." Tanaka's eyes widened. "What are you supposed to do about it?"

"Yesterday, the guy was talking about having a standoff on Friday at 2:00," Yamaguchi said.

"That's probably going to be at the beginning of the second round of Interhigh." Suga's voice was tiny. "If we make it, we're probably going to be playing when that happens."

"If I remember correctly," Kageyama said, "The guy also said he'd be somewhere related to where you saw him on Friday, right?"

"I think that means Interhigh," Yamaguchi said, "It's the only place that makes sense. It's related enough, and there's going to be a lot of people there."

"Which means the game might be postponed," Tsukishima finished.

"Well, then we only have one option." Noya looked up at everyone else with a stern expression. "And I don't know if you're gonna like it."

"What is it?" Hinata asked.

"We all get out there and help Tsukishima and Yamaguchi kick this guy's ass!" Noya grinned.

Everyone seemed to deflate at the same time, with the obvious exception of Hinata and Tanaka, who looked like they were in complete awe of Noya’s stunning and flawless grand plan.

"Do I even have to explain why that's a bad idea?" Daichi asked.

"Think about it!" Noya said, "They only have half of their original firepower -"

"Realistically speaking, it's probably less," Yamaguchi mumbled.

"Don't do that." Noya crossed his arms and glared at him. "Now is definitely not the time to be beating yourself up. If what I saw earlier counts for anything, you're definitely powerful enough. Anyway!" His grin came back full-force. "Their power level is only half of what it usually is, not to mention that it's practically equal to this guy's powers and stuff, right? So the only way to get the upper hand is to go and kick ass the old-fashioned way, which is where we come in!"

"There are about a thousand different ways that isn't safe or in any way a good idea.” Suga sighed, the facepalm in his voice completely obvious.

"Well, what else can we do?" Tanaka asked, "They're kind of at a disadvantage here."

"I never thought I'd ever say this," Tsukishima said, rolling his eyes, "But I agree. I don't think we're going to be prepared to deal with this with the way things are now, and honestly, the only way to get the advantage back here is to get more people involved on our end."

Everyone stopped to stare at him for a second.

"Do you have a secret tactical side that we don't pay attention to or what?" Kageyama asked.

"It's called living a double life, you should try it sometime." Tsukishima scoffed, crossing his arms again and reverting back to his traditional stance of nonchalance.

"See?" Noya grinned again. "When one of the parties directly involved with the situation okays my plan, then everyone okays my plan by default."

"I don't think that's how it works." Daichi chuckled.

"And I don't think we've heard anything from Yamaguchi on the matter," Suga said, taking on that be-all-end-all tone as he looked at him.

"Um…" Yamaguchi paused for a second, thinking of what to say. "I actually don't care one way or the other, really. I'll just go with whatever we all decide."

"Really?" Suga asked.

Yamaguchi nodded. He was probably the one person who wouldn't be very much affected by the plan, it wasn't his place to agree or disagree with it.

"Okay!" Noya pumped his fist in the air. "Operation Kick-Some-Supervillain-Ass is a go!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want more info on this fic as I'm writing it, feel free to check out the 'Hannah writes fanfiction' tag on my tumblr, violinist-tsukki.tumblr.com! (It's mostly shitposting, though, so be warned)
> 
> If you want to beta future chapters, you can just send me an ask there, too, and I'll gladly let you help out!


	7. An Object in Motion Stays in Motion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why are exposition chapters so hard? I guess we'll never know...
> 
> Yeah, so I'm not exactly happy with this chapter, but I think it'll be fine maybe??? I have no idea tbh. I hear that I have a penchant for being my own worst critic so maybe it's good...?
> 
> Also I changed the summary back to what it was! Because that quote was cheesy.

The next three days went by pretty much without any trouble. People were definitely on edge in class, but every day was just a normal day - a day when nothing happened. The taunting villain guy hadn't shown up again after his stint on Monday.

And practice  went by the same way. There were still questions to be asked, some of them more mundane things that no one ever really thought to ask until, of course, Hinata did. After all, he was the only person who had the gall to ask the MD if caffeine made their powers stronger, to which he didn't receive an answer, since they had never tried it - although Yamaguchi had definitely thought about it before. But other than that, things almost seemed normal.

Well, besides the countless minutes - probably hours at this point - Tanaka and Noya spent talking about their amazing plan for Friday. Noya had taken the lead on that initiative, and he had taken it miles from where it had started. He'd had multiple conversations with Yamaguchi on how exactly things worked, and he'd been especially surprised that the MD used phone calls as their main form of communication.

But Friday was a different story entirely.

The bus ride to Sendai was maybe three hours, during which everyone radiated an air of excitement about the day to come, despite being tired from the early morning road trip. Tanaka and Noya, in between all their discussion, had roped Hinata, Kageyama, and the other second-years - they had tried to get Tsukishima and Yamaguchi, too, along with Asahi, but Yamaguchi was practically still asleep, Tsukishima, as always, couldn't be bothered, and Asahi quite simply didn't want to do it - into a little game of Never Have I Ever, which Hinata would have won if Daichi hadn't called it off once he realized what was going on. He and the other third-years spent most of the trip talking about various things, with Suga periodically suggesting that everyone should play one of those road trip games, an offer no one took him up on. Yamaguchi actually slept most of the time, only joining Tsukishima in staring out the window at the very end. Needless to say, when the bus finally arrived, he was probably the most half-asleep person there.

“Hey, Yamaguchi!” Noya had to jump up in order to wrap his arm around the first-year’s shoulder once they got off the bus, something that Tanaka did a lot more easily on Yamaguchi’s other side. “Can we ask you something real quick?”

“Um, I guess so.” Yamaguchi shrugged.

“Cool.” Noya grinned as he started walking. “I’m just going to go over a few things for today, in terms of, you know...” He stopped to wink. “The _plan_.”

“What about it?”

“We were thinking about it,” Tanaka said, “And we realized it would be best if you ended up leading this thing.”

“Me?” Yamaguchi would have laughed if his breath wasn’t caught in his throat, just from how unrealistic _that_ was. “It was your idea!”

“Who cares whose idea it was?” Noya asked, “You’d be great!”

“Listen, please.” Yamaguchi put his hands out in front of him. “I’m not cut out to be that kind of person, I’m just not.”

Noya pouted. “Come on, you just haven’t tried!”

“I have -” Yamaguchi sighed, defeated. “Okay, you’re right. I haven’t really.”

“Well, now’s a perfect time to start!” Tanaka grinned.

“No, it’s really not -”

“Okay, maybe it isn’t a _perfect_ time.” Noya crossed his arms. “But it’ll work. Besides, you're the half of the MD that A, still has powers to work with, and B, isn't a total asshole."

"Not to mention you'll have us!" Tanaka pointed his thumb at his own chest. "We wouldn't be good senpai otherwise!"

"Yep!" Noya said, "We’ll all work together and do this, right?”

“Um, right.”

“Cool!” Tanaka clapped Yamaguchi on the back, making him stumble a bit as they walked inside with the rest of the team.

Once they got inside the gym, they realized just how huge it was. There must have been eight separate courts, all of them the same size as the court they practiced on back at school, and then there were the bleachers. Groups of colored t-shirts from a whole host of different schools were already taking their places around the ring surrounding the courts themselves, and even then, the bleachers looked like they could fit a good thousand more people. Despite the number of people already there, they looked fairly empty, but maybe that was just because it was only 9:00 in the morning. The first round started around 10:30, and more people would probably show up once the games got going.

"Five hours to showtime," Tanaka whispered, causing everyone to look at him with a sly smile on their face, Kiyoko unexpectedly included.

"Does everyone know what their job is for that?" Suga asked, his voice dropping maybe thirty decibels from its usual level so no one outside of the group would be able to hear. "I don't think you've told anyone about how all that's going to go." He turned to Noya with a slight glare. "Either of you."

"We'll go over it at lunch, Suga-san, don't worry about it," Noya whispered back.

Right. There was a lunch break after the end of the first round for everybody, and it was fairly long, so that everyone could properly digest their lunches before the second round began. If their first game ended at noon, the lunch break would probably last until 1:15 or so, and that would certainly be enough time to go over everything.

"Now that I think about it, this was probably a horrible idea," Tsukishima half-mumbled, so only Yamaguchi could hear him clearly.

"Really?" Yamaguchi asked, "I thought it sounded pretty good."

"It sounds fine in theory, but in practice…" Tsukishima sighed. "You know how I get on the job."

"Yeah."

Once the masks and jet black uniforms were on, there was a tiny but noticeable change in Tsukishima's personality along with it. It was weird, sure, but it happened every time without fail, and by now, Yamaguchi had just accepted it as part of the costume, so to speak. Besides, it wasn't like Yamaguchi minded it all that much. Not to mention, everything went well, so no one really had a problem with it.

But despite all that, it made perfect sense that Tsukishima didn’t want the rest of the team to see that. After all, he had a reputation to keep up, and while he could be best described as apathetic most of the time, when he was on the job, he was usually anything but. It would certainly be at least a little weird.

"What were Tanaka and Noya talking to you about?" Tsukishima asked.

"Just more of their plan or whatever." Yamaguchi chuckled. "They want me to lead the whole thing, can you believe that? I told them -"

"Good."

Yamaguchi leaned his head to the side. "What?" Did he really just hear that?

"I said it's good. That you're doing that, I mean."

"It's still their plan!"

"You at least know what you're doing."

"No, I don't! They haven't even told me anything!"

"Believe me, you are much less likely to get us all killed."

Yamaguchi sighed, running his fingers through his hair. "Tsukki, I'm going to suck so bad at this, you have no idea."

"The only way you're going to suck is if you keep working yourself up about it and telling yourself you're going to suck."

"Tsukki, that isn't helping."

"Hey, guys!" Daichi called from the front of the group, "Gather up, there are a few things I want to go over before we start warming up!" He couldn't hide the grin forming on his face, probably just from being here. Yamaguchi was fairly certain almost everyone else was the same way.

"First off, remember what Takeda-sensei said on the bus," Daichi continued, staring pointedly at Tanaka and Noya as he spoke, "Don’t do anything stupid, even if there’s a TV camera pointed right at you and it’s tempting. Use your head and your common sense." He stopped to take a breath before continuing. "I know everyone's excited about being here and what we have planned for later today, but don't let that distract you from whatever you're doing at the moment. Like Tanaka said earlier, we still have five hours to go. I'm fully confident that we can take the first round, but only if we focus on it and give it our all."

And after that, everything that was supposed to happen later wasn't spoken of again as everyone started to warm up. The only anxiety anyone was experiencing by now was about the game, not the anticipation of what was to come.

It turned out that Daichi was right, and the first round went by quickly and smoothly, with Karasuno winning two sets to none. It didn’t seem like there was much to it, and winning seemed to come pretty easily. The entire match couldn't have lasted longer than an hour and a half. No one seemed to be very worn out at the end of it, even though they all looked like they were giving their all.

And after the game ended and lunch began, everyone seemed to get back any energy they had lost during the match and seemed even more excited than they had been beforehand, Yamaguchi included.

On their way to finding a secluded spot away from everyone else, they passed by two of the Seijoh first-years, the ones Kageyama apparently knew from middle school, who looked outright disturbed at all the giggling and energy. They looked like they were about to ask Kageyama what was going on before they decided against it and kept walking, with a weird glance to each other, causing everyone to let out a chuckle.

They eventually ended up sitting in a tiny circle in the corner of a landing, with no one else around. After a little prodding from Tanaka and Noya, Kiyoko sat in the circle as well, between Suga and Ennoshita, while Ukai and Takeda-sensei stayed out of the circle, which may have been a good thing. They didn’t know that Noya had been serious about trying to get into a fight today, and if they heard what he was planning to do, there was no way they’d let anyone out of their sight.

"Is everyone ready for the grand explanation of the plan?" Noya stood up, instantly grinning once he realized he was towering over everyone else on the floor.

"I guess now's as good a time as any." Kageyama shrugged, taking his lunch out of his bag.

“Is this going to be completely ridiculous?” Daichi gave Noya a side-eyed glare.

“I don’t think so.” Tsukishima rolled his eyes. “It’s going to be completely stupid. If it’s anything at all.”

"Okay, so!” Noya crossed his arms in front of him, completely ignoring all the criticism. “Before I go any further into this, I'd like to point out that even though this is my idea, once 2:00 hits, Yamaguchi's in charge."

"What?" Yamaguchi's eyes widened as everyone turned to look at him. "I mean, I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing!"

“No one has any idea what they’re supposed to be doing,” Tsukishima grumbled.

"Don't worry, that's what I'm about to talk about!" Noya said, "It's not that complicated, I promise!"

Everyone gave him a skeptical side-eye, causing him to shudder before he reverted back to his previous state of confidence.

"So what we're going to do is split up." Noya got down on his knees, still a little higher than everyone else, but only barely. "We're going to be in pairs or groups of three, and each group is going to have a different job." He fumbled around in his bag before taking out a slightly rumpled piece of paper.

"You wrote all this down?" Suga asked.

"Yeah." Noya put his hands on his hips. "What, you thought I wasn't serious?"

Suga only shrugged before looking back up at him.

"Okay." Noya squinted, trying to read his own handwriting. "Group one is going to be Daichi-san and Suga-san, and you two are going to be up on the roof, providing backup if necessary. Like we don’t know this guy. What if he shows up and he’s powerful as hell? That’s where you two come in. Fight back, throw a few punches, you know."

"Wait, the roof?" Daichi asked, "Why would we need to be up there?"

"It could come up!" Noya said, looking back down at the piece of paper. "Group two is going to be Asahi-san, Ryuu, and me, and we're going to do the same thing in here."

He waited for a firm nod from Tanaka and a slightly delayed one from Asahi before he moved on.

"Group three is going to be Tsukishima and Yamaguchi, and you two..." Noya shrugged. "Just do what you do. This entire thing revolves around you two anyway, so act natural and we'll follow your lead.” He stopped to look at Yamaguchi in a soft half-protective glare. “And if you need any of us to do anything for you, don’t hesitate to ask.”

Tsukishima and Yamaguchi both nodded, with Yamaguchi’s nod much more enthusiastic.

"Group four," Noya continued, "Is Shouyou and Kageyama, who are going to provide distractions if we need it. If something happens like what happened to Yamaguchi on Monday, that's where you two come in. Make a scene, be loud, get noticed."

"I don't think anything like that's going to happen today." Yamaguchi chuckled. "Don't worry about it."

"It's definitely a possibility," Noya said, "And we should be ready for all of those."

"It won't be a possibility," Tsukishima grumbled, "Because there's no way in hell that's going to happen."

Noya looked at him for a second before giving him a single nod and looking back down at the piece of paper in his hands. "And last but not least…" He grinned at the other three second-years. "You three are going to be in charge of communication, meaning that if someone needs to make a call to somebody else, it'll go through you first."

"Doesn't that seem kinda inconvenient?" Ennoshita asked, "I mean, if that's our way of keeping in touch, wouldn't it be easier to just have everyone call each other directly?"

"Shit, you're right." Noya sucked in a breath through clenched teeth.

"Was that the only thing you had in mind?" Narita crossed his arms.

"Maybe...?" Noya shrugged with a sheepish smile.

“Then what are we supposed to do?” Kinoshita asked, eyes narrowed.

“I...” Noya sighed. “To be honest, I’m not sure.”

The second-year trio pressed their palms to their foreheads in unison as they gave three exasperated sighs.

“Don’t worry about it!” Noya chuckled. “We’ll think of something, right, Ryuu?” He punched Tanaka in the shoulder with a grin.

“But isn’t Yamaguchi in charge?” Tanaka asked.

“I don't even know what's going on!" Yamaguchi buried his face in his hands. This was not going well at all.

"Wait a second." Tanaka looked like a lightbulb had just gone off right above his head, like in a cartoon. “I don’t think there’s anybody on the bleachers.”

“Ryuu, you genius!” Noya’s eyes lit up as he looked back at the other three second-years. “You three can monitor up there, in case anything happens.” He grinned, looking over everyone else. “Any questions?”

"What are you guys up to?" An unmistakable sing-song voice rang out from behind the group.

"What the -?" Tanaka turned around, only to see Seijoh's captain standing there with a bemused smirk, their team's resident ace standing right behind him. “Shit.”

"How long have you been there?" Kageyama asked.

"Long enough." Oikawa shrugged, walking over so he was standing just outside of the Karasuno circle. "Sooo what's going on? What's this plan you're talking about?"

"To hell with that, where's the rest of your team?" Tanaka asked, "Shouldn't you be over wherever they are instead of snooping around here?"

"We finished early and went to go find a vending machine." Iwaizumi rolled his eyes. "Shittykawa over here can't live without his milk bread, apparently."

Oikawa promptly elbowed him in the side. "Iwa-chaaan, I'm not going to play well unless we get good food beforehand!"

"Then maybe you should have packed some of your milk bread before you left!"

"Rude!"

The two of them continued their argument for another minute or so before Oikawa narrowed his eyes at the group sitting on the floor. "We've been here a while, actually. Ever since your libero over here started explaining his grand plan." He chuckled. "It sounds like great fun!"

"Wait a second." Iwaizumi crossed his arms. "What's happening at 2:00?"

"Nothing you need to concern yourselves with!" Suga chuckled nervously.

It was like walking through a minefield. One wrong step and two more people would end up knowing about this, and these were two people Yamaguchi didn't want to give that information to. Whether they were fans or otherwise, it would be disastrous if they knew.

"Well, if you need any help, you can ask us!" Oikawa winked, giving a quick wave before he and Iwaizumi kept walking in search of a vending machine.

"That guy might be the weirdest person I have ever met." Tanaka shook his head with a small grimace.

“Well, at least we didn’t give ourselves away,” Daichi said.

“But now they know something’s up.” Noya sighed. “Dammit, I shouldn’t have been talking so loud.”

“None of that really matters right now.” Tsukishima crossed his arms. “Everyone knows the plan.” He sighed. “Even if that plan is just as stupid as I thought it would be.”

“Excuse you!” Noya crossed his arms and grinned. “If you wanted a different plan, you could have made it up yourself!”

Everyone went back to eating their lunches after that and the circle fell silent. There were small conversations going on here and there, sure, but everyone was too hungry and focused on eating to talk for long.

As Yamaguchi sat there, he thought about the plan a little more. Even before Oikawa and Iwaizumi had shown up, something about it felt off. Like one little bit of it was very, very wrong, but Yamaguchi couldn't put his finger on it.

When he looked over a Tsukishima, he realized exactly what it was.

"Hey, Tsukki?" Yamaguchi asked.

"Mm?"

"Why do you think Noya-san put us together? In the group, I mean." Yamaguchi paused for a second. "Didn't we only take last week off because you weren't able to get in on any action or anything."

"I told him to do that, actually."

"What?" Yamaguchi's eyebrows were probably going to lift right off his head and up into space. "Why?"

"You heard what he said.” Tsukishima shrugged. “As much as I'm going to try to prevent it, there’s always a chance Monday could happen again.”

"It won't, don't worry!" Yamaguchi chuckled.

"It had better not."

"Well, if it does, you'll be there, right?"

"That's what I had in mind."

"Well, that's good." Yamaguchi grinned, looking up and out the window at the parking lot, filled with a slew of different cars in a rainbow of colors.

"There's a lot of people here, huh?" Tsukishima's eyes narrowed as he followed Yamaguchi's gaze outside.

"Yeah." Yamaguchi tentatively nodded. There must have been more than a hundred cars in the lot, which meant that there were probably at least a hundred or two hundred people inside. And that didn't even count everyone from all the schools, whose buses were probably parked somewhere else. The number of people here was overwhelming.

"Are you nervous?" Tsukishima asked.

"A little." Yamaguchi sighed. "Is it that obvious?"

"Not really."

"Okay, good."

They stopped talking after that, joining everyone else in finishing up their lunches. People walked by a few times in the next couple minutes, some talking animatedly amongst themselves, some staring into cell phone screens, but none of them paying attention to the group sitting down next to the windows.

“Hey, guys, we should probably get going soon.” Suga looked at his phone maybe twenty minutes later.

“What time is it?” Tanaka asked with his mouth half-full. Noya elbowed him in the side.

“It’s 1:23 now,” Suga said, “We’re supposed to be there by 1:45 at the latest.”

"Well, then we should go." Daichi rolled his shoulders back as he stood up, before stretching his arms above his head. "We'll have some time to warm up."

Everyone nodded, starting to put their lunches back in their bags. Five minutes later, everyone was walking back into the gym with renewed strength and energy.

Yamaguchi could practically feel Datekou's presence before he even saw them warming up, and he thought everyone else did too, judging from the subtle change in their facial expressions from confident to wary. They looked strong, almost ridiculously so, and while they weren't even the best team there, they definitely looked like they were serious. With the exception of the one guy with the number seven jersey, they didn't even look like they had much height to their name, but they were definitely intimidating.

Everyone warmed up for a while as people started to filter back into the bleachers. The environment only got louder with each passing minute, and while Yamaguchi knew he'd be spending most, if not all of the game on the sidelines, he probably felt almost as much excitement as everyone else did. It was exhilarating just to be here.

Warmups passed, along with the standard minute of serving practice, and both teams were standing on opposite ends of the court, staring each other down. The referee was about to blow the whistle for both teams to come to the net and shake hands before the game officially begun.

The whistle was drowned out by a large crash as the skylight shattered, sending glass shards down onto the second court. A particularly big one was about to fall onto a screaming Oikawa, who was pushed out of the way by Iwaizumi, causing both of them to hit the ground off the court and duck for cover, neither of them daring to move. The rest of the Seijoh team, as well as whoever they were playing, bolted off to the sidelines and huddled together as they looked up.

A pitch black combination of smoke and mist seeped through the newly created hole in wisps, blocking out the sunlight and making the gym that much darker. The smoke traveled fast and far, one tendril shooting right past Yamaguchi's cheek in a matter of seconds. It was noticeably colder, the chill in the air suspiciously similar to the one Yamaguchi felt when he was using his powers and they were starting to work.

And then the mysterious villain himself arrived, dressed in all black, eyes covered by the same black mask he wore on TV on Sunday. He floated down through the hole, slowly and gracefully. Even as far away as he was, the cocky grin on his face was still obvious and definitely there.

Lifting his hands up, he pointed at the three huge overhead lights, and one by one they burned out with a sizzling noise before they exploded, sending even more glass down onto the gym floor. The gym was almost completely dark now, and with the added smoke, it looked like something out of a Tim Burton movie. Or hell. Or possibly both.

Surprisingly, everyone was still quiet - maybe people were too shocked to start screaming yet. The only thing Yamaguchi could hear was Tsukishima's whisper from next to him.

"Showtime."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm always on tumblr at [violinist-tsukki.tumblr.com](http://violinist-tsukki.tumblr.com) if you want to check that out!


	8. Breakthrough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, everyone! School is... well, school, and APs are ridiculously homework-heavy and annoying. Not to mention I was originally trying to combine this chapter and the next chapter into one, before I realized that was like 8000 words on its own so I split them up. I get carried away sometimes

Yamaguchi was frozen - he would have started running if his legs had cooperated and started moving, but they stayed right there on the back line, completely still. He wasn't the only one, either; maybe two Datekou players, four Seijoh players, and a few from other schools stayed right where they were, looking around at everything. The display was almost mesmerising, what with the wisps of smoke floating everywhere and the creepy but endearing air of everything.

This was it. This was the moment when he had to take charge for once in his life and make things right.

And he was scared stiff.

It had sounded fine in theory. He knew that this was just the kind of thing people would want to see from him; after all, that’s what they’d been saying since he’d started: do more, be more, try harder. And this morning, when he’d thought about it after not being given a choice, he was nervous, but also probably the most excited he’d been in a long time. Before right now, he thought he could do this, fairly easily.

But in the heat of the moment, it was fairly obvious that he couldn’t. To him, at least. He would end up getting something wrong, and at a time like this, getting something wrong most likely had a death count. He didn’t want to risk any of that.

But there were circumstances here he wanted to take advantage of. He wanted to use -

“Yamaguchi, come on!” Hinata’s voice behind him snapped him out of the stream of nerves rushing through his head as he felt his right hand being dragged behind him with so much force that he had to turn around and start running to keep up with the shorter boy’s strides.

“Where’s everyone else?” Yamaguchi wasn’t necessarily surprised at Hinata’s speed, but he was slightly startled that he was having trouble keeping up, even with his longer legs.

“They’re all up on the second floor!” Hinata led Yamaguchi out of the gym and up the stairs. “We were waiting for you, but you never came, so everyone told me to go get you!”

“Sorry.” Yamaguchi looked down for a quick second before he realized that was a mistake as he fell further behind.

“It’s okay!” Hinata turned around for a second and grinned, not losing any speed at all. “This is really weird.”

They weaved through the crowd of people trying to exit the gym in the opposite direction, eliciting a few annoyed grunts from some people but mostly justs looks of surprise that _holy crap someone is actually going back in there_. Hinata, being the shorter one, moved through a lot easier, but dragging Yamaguchi's hand behind him caused the latter to bump into maybe five people on the way up, only having time to mutter a hurried "excuse me!" before he got pulled along again.

Everyone else was gathered in the corner where they'd had lunch earlier, and were standing in a tight circle, talking eagerly amongst themselves. Kiyoko, Ukai, and Takeda-sensei were nowhere to be found; Yamaguchi guessed that they had run out as soon as possible.

"Hey, there they are!" Suga leaned out of the circle to give a quick wave, before gesturing to everyone else to take a step back.

Hinata and Yamaguchi both nabbed a spot in the circle, Hinata between Tanaka and Kageyama, Yamaguchi between Tsukishima and Narita, as everyone turned to Yamaguchi expectantly.

Right, he was supposed to be _in charge_.

"So, does everyone know what we're doing?" Noya cleared his throat.

Everyone nodded, some people more enthusiastic than others.

"Cool." He grinned before looking back at Yamaguchi. "Well? Do you have anything you want to say or should we just go?"

"Um…" Yamaguchi paused for a second. Should he say it? He had no idea how everyone would react, and he didn't know how he would put it without sounding rude.

But he knew he had to say it at some point.

"I know this is going to be weird and sudden," he said, scratching his head, "But I want to do as much of this on my own as I can."

Everyone's eyes widened in shock.

"My idea is that I should use this to my advantage as much as possible," Yamaguchi continued, looking down at the ground, "I'm not exactly famous for being the one who saves the day all the time." His voice got maybe twenty decibels quieter. "I've probably been called useless more times than I've said my own name." He looked back up, meeting everyone's concerned frowns with a tiny smile. Tsukishima's eyes were wider than everyone else's but he stayed silent. "But this is my chance to change that. If I try as hard as I can when I'm in the lead here, that could change everything." He paused for a moment, looking back down at the floor. "Sorry."

It was silent for a few seconds while everyone tried to contemplate what he said. But after what seemed like an eternity, everyone slowly nodded.

"There's nothing to be sorry about." Suga smiled, but it wasn't the wide grin he always wore. It was more melancholy than it had ever been. "You heard what Noya said, right? The plan revolves around you, so we're going to follow your lead no matter what. Is there anything else you want to say?"

"Um, that's it, I think," Yamaguchi said, not taking his eyes off the floor. He waited for a few seconds before he looked back up at everyone else as he took his mask out of his bag, spinning it by its elastic band around his finger. "Let's go."

* * *

 

Hinata was the first out of the group to race out of the circle and down the stairs, leaving Kageyama in his dust as he scrambled to catch up.

"Oi, dumbass, wait up!" Kageyama shouted. He knew it was useless; no one had ever succeeded in controlling the resident energy ball before, so why would it work now?

Hinata turned around and stuck his tongue out before he faced forward again and kept running, not losing any speed as he dashed into the noticeably darker gym.

Kageyama, on the other hand, had to stop and take it all in once he ran through the doors. It was only a few seconds before he realized exactly why Yamaguchi had taken so long.

The hairs on his arms stood up in response to the sudden temperature drop, making him visibly shiver as his pace slowed to a slow walk. The lights had all burned out and the weird smoke-mist was completely blocking the skylight, making it seem like the middle of the night inside, even though it was only mid-afternoon.

And the smoke itself only made things that much creepier. It mostly stayed in a huge bank up by the ceiling, but every so often a black wisp would float down and shoot through the air near the ground. A few of them zipped past Kageyama's face, and one almost seemed to pass through him, or at least around him, sending a chill up his spine.

"Oi, Kageyama!" Hinata shouted from across the gym, next to a scorekeeper's table. "Get over here!"

"Shut up!" Another voice that Kageyama definitely recognized seemed to come out of nowhere, although he was probably just under the table where Kageyama couldn't see him. "Are you trying to get us all killed?"

Kageyama jogged over to the table, just to see none other than Iwaizumi Hajime crossing his arms underneath it. He was accompanied, as usual, by Oikawa, who was clinging to him like a child holds onto their precious blanket. Both of them were glaring at Hinata, although Iwaizumi definitely pulled it off better.

"Well, how else do you think I was going to tell him I saw you guys?" Hinata asked.

"You might have this thing called a cell phone," Iwaizumi deadpanned, "Have you ever used it?"

"Iwa-chan!" Oikawa gasped before he broke out into a smirk. "Are you saying that you think Chibi-chan and Tobio-chan got each other's numbers?"

Iwaizumi shrugged.

"Why are you two still here?" Kageyama asked.

"We could ask you the same question." Oikawa crossed his arms.

Kageyama blinked. He didn’t know how to answer that question without giving everything away. Which probably meant majorly pissing Tsukishima off, which he wouldn’t have cared about before - he might have even been glad to do it - but now that he knew that pissing that guy off could probably get Kageyama electrocuted on the spot, the consequences weren't exactly comforting.

He didn’t want to get killed today if he could help it.

So he stayed silent, which was awkward, but probably worth it in the end. Oikawa stared at him for around five seconds, but sighed exasperatedly when he didn’t end up saying anything.

“Okay, _fine_.” Oikawa huffed. “Be that way.”

Before Kageyama could say something back, he was interrupted by a loud crash from across the floor, near the windows. Turning around to look behind him, the masked man had turned around, a sinister grin spreading across his face as he started to walk towards them.

Hinata practically squeaked as he tried to dive under the table with Oikawa and Iwaizumi, who promptly pushed him out.

“There’s not enough room under here for both of us and both of you,” Iwaizumi hissed, “Find your own damn table to hide under!”

Was there even another table to hide under? Kageyama didn’t see one as he frantically tried to look around the gym before just plain trying to run.

Before he really knew what was going on, Hinata was practically pushing him across the gym to a tiny table on the other side that was pushed up against the bleachers. Hinata’s speed only increased as the few excruciating seconds went by, and when Kageyama turned around for a second, the man was walking towards them in steady, menacing strides.

"Hey!" The voice came from almost directly above them, cutting into the eerie silence. It was quiet, and not quite convincing, but it did enough. The man looked up at the same time Kageyama did.

Now that he thought about it, he had definitely seen Yamaguchi with his mask and MD uniform on, whether it was on TV or online, but knowing it was actually him made things that much more different. He was floating just above the bleachers, trying to stand his ground, although his nervousness was fairly obvious.

"So you finally decided to show up." The man's voice was smooth as he smirked. "Where's your other half?"

Yamaguchi paused for a moment before he balled his fists at his side. "You know exactly why he's not here, so why does it matter where he is?"

The man's smirk didn't go away. "Well, I was planning on using him for a little demonstration." He chuckled, turning around to look Kageyama dead in the eye. "But I think one of these people here should work just fine, wouldn't you think?"

After Kageyama saw the glint in his eye, everything went by faster than he could tell what was going on.

The man lunged forward toward him, hand reaching out toward his own. Kageyama pulled his hand away just in time. Hinata jumped in front of him. The man grinned as he grabbed Hinata's hand. Kageyama swore he saw sparks fly.

Hinata screamed before he crumpled to the ground.

"What the hell…" Kageyama's eyes narrowed as he looked from the man to Hinata and back and forth over and over again.

This was not going according to plan.

"Well, you get the idea, right?" The man was talking to Yamaguchi again, momentarily distracted.

Kageyama knew he had to get himself and Hinata out of here somehow, although he had no idea how to do it.

Before he realized he wasn't exactly alone in here.

"Oikawa-san!" Kageyama hiss-whispered, whipping his head around towards the table Oikawa and Iwaizumi were huddled under.

"What the hell are you thinking?" Oikawa's eyes widened. "I'm not coming out from under here unless that guy leaves first."

Kageyama glared at him before looking down at Hinata. He was breathing, though it was shallow, and he looked normal enough. He was going to be fine; that tiny idiot had been through much worse than this.  

But when Kageyama looked down at him, he couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt in his chest. It could have been him. It was about to be him, if that dumbass hadn't jumped in front of him. But while it was ridiculously stupid and something Kageyama would never really understand, he did.

"Kageyama!" Noya and Tanaka were standing at the gym doors, Asahi worriedly looking around a little ways behind them.

"What?" Kageyama whispered.

"You two get out of here!" Noya jabbed a thumb behind him, out the door. "No questions, do it!"

"But what about the plan?"

"Fuck the plan!" Noya crossed his arms. "We're taking over!"

Tanaka leaned down to look at Oikawa and Iwaizumi under the table. "I don't know why you two are still here, but now's a perfect time to get the hell out, just saying!"

Iwaizumi was the first to stand up, with a wary glance at Noya and Tanaka. "What the hell is everyone doing?"

Both of the second-years just shrugged.

Oikawa rolled his eyes as he and Iwaizumi rushed out. "You are the weirdest people I have ever met."

"Same to you!" Tanaka shouted back at them before he turned back around to look at everything inside the gym.

"Asahi-san!" Noya shouted, "Help Kageyama get Shouyou out of here! Ryuu and I can handle this!"

"What are you two even going to do?" Kageyama asked as Asahi ran over towards him.

"I don't know!" Tanaka laughed before he narrowed his eyes and grinned. "That's the fun part."

And with that, he and Noya dashed forward into the fray, looking like they were about to have the time of their lives. The feeling of imminent danger that Kageyama had didn't seen to phase them at all.

Which left Kageyama and Asahi standing over Hinata's unconscious body.

"How are we going to do this?" Asahi frowned. "I mean, we could just do it where I take his legs and you take his arms and we carry him out that way, but I don't know."

"I don't really have any ideas, either." Kageyama looked around the gym, although he didn't know why.

"What happened anyway?" Asahi asked.

"This guy has electricity powers, right?" Kageyama sighed. "We knew that already, but basically, he was trying to intimidate Yamaguchi by showing him what he could do and he needed someone for his demonstration, so he shocked Hinata, and here we are."

Asahi's eyes widened. "Is he okay?"

"I think so," Kageyama said, "But I have no idea."

“Oww...” Hinata slowly blinked his eyes open, trying to sit up before he grimaced, lying back on the ground. “I feel like I’m on fire.”

“You absolute _dumbass_.” Kageyama crossed his arms and glared down at him. “Why the ever-loving fuck would you _do_ that?”

“Something bad was going to happen, so I did something about it!” Hinata glared right back. “You didn’t look like you were going to do anything.”

They stayed where they were for a few seconds, just glaring at each other as neither one of them dared to move. They were both panting hard, but that didn’t stop them from sending their angry vibes each other’s way.

“Don’t you fucking dare try to pull something like that again, dumbass.”

Hinata’s eyes widened before he started giggling. “If you’re going to give me that face if I do, then I don’t want to!”

“That’s what I was going for, idiot!”

Hinata just stuck his tongue out at him.

* * *

Noya only stopped for a second to take in his surroundings, although he wished he could afford to take more time. When this whole thing started, he'd only gotten a second before Daichi started yelling at everyone to run.

But now that he was here, he only had time to look around for chairs, mats, something to throw at this guy or hit him with if nothing else worked. He always liked to be prepared if at all possible.

"Hey, Ryuu?" Noya whispered.

"Yeah?" Tanaka asked.

"Do you have any idea how this is going to work?"

"Dude, I thought you were doing that!"

Noya sucked in a breath through his clenched teeth. "This is more complicated than I thought it would be."

"No shit." Tanaka crossed his arms as he looked over at the masked man, then up at Yamaguchi. "This isn't going to end well."

"Yeah, I know." Noya leaned down to pick up two plastic water bottles, probably left behind when everyone else had run as far away from here as possible. They weren't exactly perfect in the way of weapons, but he liked to think he had pretty good aim and could hit this guy in the face if he threw it hard enough. Plus, if he needed a drink mid-battle, it would be right there.

And then the man started floating in mid-air.

Noya sighed. Right. He could fly, too. This was a lot harder than he expected.

Yamaguchi visibly gulped as the two of them came to eye level with each other. It was like David and Goliath, except there was no way to know for sure who would come on top. This was real life, you couldn't predict that.

"Hey, asshole!" Noya whirled around to see Tanaka holding up a chair over his head. "Want to know what plastic tastes like?"

The man only laughed. "You think you're going to be able to hit me from all the way down there?"

Tanaka's eyes narrowed as he hurled the chair up anyway. It hit the man's feet.

"I can't believe you're being supported by such idiots, Midori!" The man turned back to Yamaguchi again with a chuckle. "Do you really think they're going to cover up all your weaknesses here?"

"Shut up!" Yamaguchi closed his eyes as the same chair Tanaka threw levitated right up next to him before it hurled itself toward the man, hitting him square in the gut.

"Nice one!" Noya shouted, giving Yamaguchi a thumbs-up. Yamaguchi gave a small smile in return for a quick second.

"Don't push yourself too hard!" Tanaka cupped his hands around his mouth.

"Don't worry!" Yamaguchi shouted back, "I'm not going to do anything stupid!"

As he turned back to face the man, the man turned to face Noya and Tanaka with a cocky grin.

"You know, I'd really like to take out the annoying cheer squad!" The man said, looking down at them.

He held up his hand, pointing two fingers at them as his hair started to stand up. Noya realized at just the right time that he was trying to do the same thing he'd done to Hinata earlier.

"Ryuu, move!" Noya dodged out of the way before he really knew what was going on.

Tanaka briefly looked up before he rolled out of the way onto his stomach, in the opposite direction Noya did. The bolt of lightning hit the ground directly between them, leaving a black scorch mark on the floor.

Noya could barely register what had happened, let alone catch his breath, before the second bolt came. Turning onto his back, he looked up at the man, whose hand was now pointed right between his eyes.

He was aiming for him.

Noya was on his back, and he couldn't turn back over and get out of the way easily or quickly. He was a deer in the headlights at this point, and it didn't look like the truck was going to stop in time for him to avoid being roadkill.

He didn't think he felt the bolt hit him. It wasn't hot, and he didn't feel any acute pain anywhere.

But he did feel like he'd been hit by a steamroller, and the next second he was rolling over maybe ten times, being crushed by something whenever his back touched the floor. It was like when he was a kid and he'd roll down the big hill at the park, trying to pick up as much speed on the way down and roll as far as possible once he reached the bottom. Except there wasn't something on top of him back then like there was now.

When he stopped rolling and opened his eyes, it turned out that it wasn't something but someone.

He was lying on his side when he stopped, panting hard and looking right into Asahi's much-wider-than-normal eyes.

"Are you okay?" Asahi asked. He was probably trying to catch his breath, too.

Noya paused for a second before he nodded, rolling over onto his back. "Yeah. When did you get here?"

"Ten seconds ago? I don't know."

"Okay." Noya's eyes were probably just as wide as Asahi's were, but that didn't matter. "Is everything okay outside?"

"I think so. Kageyama said he had it under control."

"Good." Noya tried to calm down, at least a little bit, but his heart was still racing. "Thanks."

"Oh, uh, no problem." Asahi smiled sheepishly.

"What the hell was that for?!" Tanaka shook his fist at the man, still floating in the air.

The man just sighed. "So much for getting you to shut up."

He rose ever higher, up through the black smoke covering the light shining in from the broken skylight. Yamaguchi followed a few seconds later, picking up speed with every second.

Which left Tanaka, Asahi, and Noya alone.

Tanaka was the first one to start laughing, after maybe ten seconds of awkward silence. It wasn't long before Noya joined in, having to lean on Asahi's shoulder to stop himself from falling over.

He wasn't exactly sure why he was laughing. A few seconds ago, he'd been scared stiff and extremely close to not getting out of this okay. But maybe that was what set it off. He was fine, at least for now.

And this was going to be over as soon as it began.

* * *

 

Suga had been standing up on the roof for around fifteen or twenty minutes now, and he was bored out of his mind. He had been texting Ennoshita about everything that had been going on inside, and while that seemed like a lot, he was still jealous that he wasn't a part of it.

He'd started staring out over the edge a few minutes ago, looking at the buildings that littered the skyline of downtown Sendai a mile or so away. There was a light breeze blowing through his hair, and if he ignored what was happening inside, which he couldn't really hear anyway, it was fairly calm.

Until the man burst out of the hole where the skylight had been, taking an entirely new wave of black smoke with him.

Suga and Daichi whirled around at about the same time, realizing they were completely alone with this guy. Yamaguchi didn't look like he was going to get there anytime soon, and neither of them could really take his place, realistically speaking.

"Crap." Daichi didn't seem to blink once over maybe the next minute, not taking his eyes off the man floating in midair.

The man sighed. "You just have to have reinforcements everywhere, don't you?" He must have been rolling his eyes under the mask.

"Come on, Yamaguchi, where are you?" Suga said to himself through clenched teeth. He looked from the skylight to the door from the roof to the inside of the building, hoping he'd come through one of those entrances.

He heard a tiny sizzle, and before he knew it, he was flying back across the rooftop, past Daichi's face mid-gasp, just barely past the edge of the rooftop itself.

He grabbed onto the edge as he was about to fall, hanging precariously over the sidewalk below. He saw at least four news vans parked in the parking lot, and at least five cameras pointed directly at him.

His parents would be worried sick.

"Suga!" Daichi knelt down on the edge of the roof, leaning over as he extended his hand out to him. "Are you okay?"

"I think so!" Suga said, trying his hardest not to look down. "What happened?"

"The guy did some sort of shockwave move and it hit you while you were looking at the door or something," Daichi said, reaching his hand out even further, "Grab on, I'll pull you up!"

"Daichi, you have to take care of everything up there until Yamaguchi gets there." Suga didn't know how long his grip on the edge of the building would last. "Don't worry, I'll be fine!"

"Are you serious?" Daichi almost looked like he was about to laugh. "I'm not leaving!" He looked behind him for a second before breaking out into a small grin. "Yamaguchi just got here and he's taking care of things, I'm staying right here."

"Good." Suga smiled, despite the circumstances.

"Daichi-san?" Someone said, probably still on the roof. "What are you doing?"

Daichi turned around. "Hey, could you give me a hand here?"

It was a moment before Tsukishima leaned over the edge of the roof next to Daichi, taking a second to look out at all the news vans before he looked down at Suga with his mouth slightly open. It was weird to see him in the all-black MD uniform, even though Suga knew it was coming.

“What happened?” He asked with a small frown.

“A weird shockwave move, apparently,” Suga said.

“How does this guy know how to do that?” Tsukishima muttered, “I’ve only ever done that once.”

“I hate to cut off your stream of thought, but can we just get this done?” Suga asked, “I don’t know if I can hold on for another minute.”

“Oh.” Tsukishima frowned. "Right."

He and Daichi each extended a hand down to Suga, who let go of the edge of the roof to grab Daichi's hand.

"Suga-san, you have to let go," Tsukishima said, "This isn't going to work with only one of us."

Suga paused there for a second, trying not to look down at the pavement tree stories below him, before he gulped and grabbed Tsukishima's hand.

"Okay, ready?" Daichi asked.

Tsukishima nodded.

"On three," Daichi said, "One, two, three!"

The two of them pulled as hard as they could, and Suga felt like his arms were going to fall off. They were trying, that he could tell from the beads of sweat running down Daichi's face, but Suga only went up maybe two inches. This was hopeless.

"Crap." Daichi sighed after maybe a minute straight of effort. "This isn't going to work."

"It's okay," Suga said, "If you guys don't let go, I think I'll be fine."

"Wait." Tsukishima turned around. "Yamaguchi!"

"Yeah?" Yamaguchi called out, probably from the other side of the rooftop.

"Can you take over here?"

Yamaguchi paused for a second. "Then who's going to take care of everything else?"

Tsukishima sucked in a breath as he clenched his teeth together. "I will."

"Are you sure?" Yamaguchi asked, walking over to the edge of the roof, making it so Suga could actually see him.

"I think I have an idea," Tsukishima said, "It's a stupid idea, but there's a small chance it could work."

Yamaguchi paused for a second before he grinned. "Okay, Tsukki!"

They switched places after that, with Yamaguchi kneeling next to Daichi to grab Suga's hand while Tsukishima ran off to test his so-called stupid idea.

Despite wearing practically the exact same thing at the moment, with the lone difference being mask color, the two of them couldn't have looked more different.

"Hey, Yamaguchi?" Suga asked.

"Yeah?" Yamaguchi looked down at him with a frown. "Don't worry, this won't take more than a minute."

"That's not what I'm talking about," Suga said, "Don't push yourself too hard, okay?"

Yamaguchi chuckled as he closed his eyes. "Okay."

Suga hadn't been on the receiving end of Yamaguchi's little demonstration on Monday, so he didn't have a clue what to expect. And he was slightly nervous. He shut his eyes just as everything started, as if that would make it easier.

He didn't really feel much at first. There wasn't solid ground under his feet, so he didn't feel himself lifting up off of it. It just felt like he was staying right where he was.

But a few seconds later, his stomach felt like it was spinning at a thousand miles an hour. True, he was prone to a tiny bit of motion sickness, if only on the spinning rides at amusement parks, but this felt like an entirely different kind. Mostly because it wasn't like motion sickness, but like butterflies, even though he was probably moving by now.

After a few seconds, he felt like he was shaking, to which he shut his eyes even tighter. There was no way he could be dropped, right? He was probably right above the roof by now.

And right above the roof was where he proved to be, as he felt himself falling straight down on top of something, but something solid.

When he opened his eyes, he found that he was sprawled out directly on top of Daichi.

And as he anxiously rolled off to the side and sat up - back on the roof again - Suga audibly squeaked.

"Suga!" Daichi started laughing. "Don't freak out!"

Suga took a second to breathe before he grinned with a nervous chuckle. "So are you saying you like being crushed by another life-size human being or what?"

Daichi only laughed harder.

"Sorry, Suga-san!" Yamaguchi said, "I didn't mean to drop you like that! It -"

"Don't worry about it." Suga smiled. "I'm not dangling for my life anymore, so I'm going to consider this a success."

Yamaguchi beamed.

“Now that I’m okay, what do we do?” Suga asked.

“I don’t know.” Daichi shrugged, turning to Yamaguchi. “I guess you’re the one who knows what’s going on here."

"I don't really know, either." Yamaguchi chuckled.

“That’s okay.” Suga grinned. “We’ll figure something out eventually.”

They were interrupted from behind by the unmistakable sound of a breath being sucked in through clenched teeth, although louder than usual. Especially considering who it was undoubtedly from.

Daichi was the first one to whirl around to face the back, only a second or two before Yamaguchi. Both of them gasped at roughly the same time before Yamaguchi started running over to the other side of the rooftop with a huge grin on his face.

Once Suga finally decided to follow and turn around towards whatever was happening over there, the corners of his mouth turned up into a grin almost as wide.

Tsukishima was standing there with his back to everyone else as the masked man stumbled off behind him. He looked like he was focused on his hands, which, as far as Suga knew, looked completely normal.

Except for the unmistakable pop and flash of a spark flying out of his right index finger, only lasting for a second before it dissolved in the air.

Suga's eyes widened as he realized that the weird game they'd been playing was just about over. And they'd won.

Having his back turned, Tsukishima had no way to prepare for when Yamaguchi practically jumped on his back and hugged him. It not only made Tsukishima jump in surprise, but it also threw him slightly off balance and made him almost fall over, making both Daichi and Suga unable to hold in their giggle.

Once Tsukishima somehow regained both his balance and his composure, he shot a few bolts of lightning at the ground around him before he jumped up into the air and hovered there for a second, looking around as he -

Wait, was he _laughing_?

That was unexpected. And weird. But it wasn't necessarily a bad thing, right?

"You're back!" Yamaguchi looked like he could burst into tears at any moment and it didn't look like he would stop smiling anytime soon.

"Yeah." Tsukishima nodded. "Turns out that stupid idea ended up working after all."

Yamaguchi responded by hugging him even tighter for maybe another minute. Surprisingly, Tsukishima didn't object.

Suga tried to hide a smile, but found that even when he tried putting his hand over his mouth to try and hide it, it made Daichi start laughing from next to him. Eventually, Suga really had no choice but to start giggling along with him. His firm belief, after all, was that laughter was contagious.

But when something black flashed past his eye, he stopped instantly, his eyes darting to the other edge of the roof, where the masked man was starting to get back to his feet. It was slow, and his legs wobbled as he got up, but the point was that he was getting up in the first place.

And Tsukishima and Yamaguchi didn't seem to notice.

"Hey!" Daichi called out before Suga had a chance to. "I don't think this is over yet!" He pointed frantically toward the edge as Tsukishima and Yamaguchi finally looked up at him, their eyes widening once they saw what he was referring to.

Tsukishima scowled. "There isn't really much left to do."

He held out his right hand, pointing his index finger right at where the man was standing. After a second, he took a breath before a bright white bolt shot out of his finger, hitting the man square in the chest. The man went back down, instantly out cold.

Tsukishima didn't seem to make much of it, walking right past him to look over the edge for a couple seconds before he turned back around. "Hey, Yamaguchi?"

"Yeah?" Yamaguchi seemed to perk up even more than he already was.

"It looks like there are a few police cars down there." Tsukishima crossed his arms in front of him as he turned back around again, looking down over the edge of the rooftop. "Can you lift him down to the first floor hallway and make it so they don't have to come up here?"

"Oh." Yamaguchi paused for a second before he grinned. "Yeah."

He started the process by walking over to the hole in the roof where the skylight used to be. Lifting up both hands, the man's body rose with them, eventually traveling over to where he stood before slowly lowering through the hole down to the floor. After a few seconds, Yamaguchi started hovering himself, probably trying to get a better view so he could get the job done easier.

After a few more seconds, he smiled as he looked back up at everyone else. "Okay, that's it. I think we're done!"

Suga may have been the first one to notice that his hands were shaking.

Before he could make anything of that or even guess what was about to happen, Yamaguchi swayed in midair before he started falling entirely, dropping down through the hole at an already-sickening speed everyone knew would only increase. After all, he could bend the laws of physics quite a bit, but there was no way he could ever truly break them.

Barely a second went by before Tsukishima started running up to the hole himself, looking over the edge before he took one foot off the ground.

"Wait!" Suga said, not daring to look over the edge of the hole himself.

"There's no time for that," Tsukishima said through clenched teeth before he jumped into the hole, not hesitating for a moment in doing it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can check me out at my brand-spanking-new [writing blog](http://hanwritesstuff.tumblr.com) (where I'll be posting updates for this fic in the "MitAoSI" tag) or just on my [main blog](http://violinist-tsukki.tumblr.com). You can ask me questions or whatever at either of those places, so yep yep. Comments and kudos are always appreciated!


	9. Just Keep Breathing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick update what is this?? I got impatient, so I'm just going to update now and edit later. I'm actually happy with the chapter for once, so why not?
> 
> Yes, the chapter title is based on the We the Kings song. Fight me. Also yes, next chapter is the last chapter. Make of that what you will.

Yamaguchi knew he was falling. He could tell from the air blasting through his hair and the uneasy feeling in his stomach. He didn't know how fast he was falling, or how far he had to go before he hit the hard gym floor, or what would happen when he did.

He was scared as hell, but he didn't think he had enough energy to act like it. His palms weren't sweaty, his breathing was still calm and slow, his heart didn't feel like it was beating a thousand times a minute.

The landing wasn't in any way what he expected. It wasn't hard, and he didn't feel like he hurt anything in the process. It didn't feel like the floor at all.

"Yamaguchi?"

Slowly stretching his arms up above his head, Yamaguchi cracked his eyes open, letting out a tiny smile once he saw Tsukishima looking down at him.

"Are you okay?" Tsukishima asked. His eyes were wide.

"Y-yeah." Yamaguchi nodded. "I'm okay."

"How many times am I going to have to tell you before it sinks in?" Tsukishima scowled. "Don't overdo it."

"Sorry, Tsukki!" Yamaguchi chuckled, trying to sit up where he was.

He was right; he wasn't on the ground at all. He was probably maybe ten feet above it and coming down slowly.

And he was being carried bridal-style in Tsukishima's arms.

Yamaguchi lay back down, making a sound that probably wasn't of human origin.

"Can you not make this more awkward than it needs to be?" Tsukishima asked, "I had maybe ten seconds before you were going to hit the ground, I didn't have a lot of options."

Yamaguchi giggled as the two of them made a soft landing on the ground, right in the middle of the floor. Everything was completely silent.

“Really, though.” Tsukishima frowned. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Yamaguchi yawned, interrupting himself in the process. “I could probably sleep for the next month, but I’m okay.”

“Then get some sleep." Tsukishima shrugged. "Honestly, you could fall asleep right here and I wouldn't care."

"Oh." Yamaguchi tried not to blush, although it most likely wasn't working. "I can wait, it's okay."

Tsukishima nodded, taking a few steps out the door before he quickly ducked back in. "Shit."

"Hm?" Yamaguchi asked.

"Why are there five news vans here?" Tsukishima asked, mostly to himself.

"So?" Yamaguchi asked, "Why does that matter?"

“Their line of vision is between us and the bus, and there’s no way in hell that I’m going to talk to any of those people.” Tsukishima shrugged. “The chance that I could mess everything up is way too high for this.”

“Okay.” Yamaguchi tried to look around, but from his current vantage point - which he was desperately trying to ignore, for fear of melting into a puddle on the ground from sheer embarrassment - he could really only look up.

“Did you see if there was another entrance?” Tsukishima asked, “If there is, that makes things a lot easier.”

“I don’t know.” Yamaguchi sighed. “I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“Shit, neither was I.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“I could make a break for it and just try to run to the bus, but I think we both know that’s not a good idea.”

“You could fly over it, right?” Yamaguchi asked.

“Yeah, but I’m out of practice.” Tsukishima scowled. “There’s no way that’ll work.”

“It worked fine ten minutes ago!”

“I wasn’t expecting that to work, it just happened.” Tsukishima paused for a second. "Okay, so maybe I didn't exactly think that through."

"So we run."

"I think that's the only option we have." Tsukishima frowned, looking out at the vans before he looked out at the space behind the bus, which was conveniently parked fairly close to the entrance. "Hold on tight."

"Wha-?" Yamaguchi couldn't finish the word he was about to say before Tsukishima took off, sprinting faster than he'd probably ever gone before, on the job or off. Yamaguchi practically had to wrap both his arms around Tsukishima's shoulders just to stay on. It was particularly effective; while it was uncomfortable, he never ended up falling and royally screwing everything up.

Yamaguchi used the opportunity to look out at the news reporters and camera crews scattered around the parking lot, who, thankfully, didn't pay any attention to the people they were trying to interview running right past them. One reporter was talking in front of the gym while another was interviewing someone Yamaguchi didn't recognize, and yet another was looking down at her phone while the camera crew across from her set up. They all somehow looked stressed and bored at the same time.

Once they got behind the bus and safely out of everyone's view, Tsukishima came to a sudden halt, stopping practically as fast as he began. He took a second to breathe, panting hard before he mounted the steps to get inside. He was still carrying Yamaguchi the whole time, and while it was pretty awkward, Yamaguchi didn't have to walk anywhere or really make an effort to do anything, which was a tremendous blessing. While he would probably never say out loud that he didn't exactly mind this, he sure wasn't complaining.

Everyone who was already on the bus - which, at this point, was only Ukai, Takeda-sensei, Kiyoko, Ennoshita, Kinoshita, and Narita - were taking up the same seats they'd been in on the way here, with the three second-years in the middle of the bus and everyone else near the front. As Tsukishima and Yamaguchi got on, they received a tiny wave from Ennoshita and just a glance from everyone else as they made their way to the second row of seats. It wasn't exactly like they minded; the last thing either of them needed at a time like this was a multitude of questions.

Yamaguchi was both surprised and relieved to see his bag in his seat once he got there. Someone had probably brought it onto the bus before he'd gotten there, which he was immensely thankful for. He didn't want to go back in for a second trip.

Once they got there, Tsukishima carefully - well, as carefully as he could under the circumstances - set Yamaguchi down into the window seat before he took the aisle seat himself, practically melting into it more than sitting down.

Yamaguchi finally felt like he could stop holding his breath.

"Is there any good reason for _not_ sleeping starting right now?" Tsukishima asked, taking his mask off and stuffing it into his bag. "Because if there isn't, I'm not waking up until we get back."

"We were going to have a discussion about whatever you all were doing in there once everyone got here, but I don't think you need to be a part of that, since it's your job to be there in the first place. You should definitely get some rest." Takeda-sensei turned around to smile at both Tsukishima and Yamaguchi before he looked at Yamaguchi with a small frown. "Both of you."

Yamaguchi nodded as he leaned back into his seat, looking out the front windshield at the rest of the parking lot. The news vans were still there, although two of them looked to be closing up for the day.

Just as he was about to close his eyes and drift off for probably the rest of the ride back, he was interrupted by the unmistakable voices of the two other second-years getting on the bus, laughing the whole time. Yamaguchi sighed, knowing he probably wasn’t going to get any sleep for a long time if those two were anywhere near him.

“Welcome back, _Aka-kun_ ,” Noya said, stretching out the nickname as he smirked in Tsukishima’s general direction.

“Don’t call me that.” Tsukishima rolled his eyes before he leaned back in his seat, putting his headphones on as he closed his eyes.

“Come on!” Tanaka lightly punched his shoulder as he walked down the aisle. “It’s a mark of honor, you should embrace it!”

“I’ll be sure to ‘embrace it’ once I’m not about to pass out from exhaustion.” Even with his eyes closed, Tsukishima made sure to exaggerate the air quotes as much as he was prone to do.

Tanaka only laughed as he sat down next to Noya in the back row. "Whatever you say, Aka-kun!"

Yamaguchi turned around briefly to look at their exchange of high-fives in the back seat before he turned around to face the front again, staring out through the windshield like he was before. He leaned forward in his seat, chin in his hands while his elbows rested on his knees

"Hey," Tsukishima whispered, poking him in the arm before he crossed his arms in front of him again, "Get some sleep, you need it."

"Okay, okay." Yamaguchi chuckled as he leaned back into the seat, turning his head to look out the window. Despite everything that had just happened, he was ridiculously tired, and he'd been fighting the urge to just fall asleep on the spot as soon as he sat down.

As everyone else started to file onto the bus, he felt his eyelids start to droop. It felt like he was the victim of a tacky theme park hypnosis act, and the person in the cheesy magician's costume that was holding a pocket watch by its chain was slowly counting down from ten.

Nine.

Eight.

He'd be mesmerized, completely and utterly so. His eyes would go wide, his pupils would dilate, and if this was a cartoon, his eyes would just be replaced with swirls.

Seven.

Six.

As soon as the countdown reached zero, Yamaguchi would be in a "deep slumber", which he most likely wouldn't be able to break out of unless someone poured water on his head.

Five.

Four.

He'd think he was a chicken or something dumb like that. Or he would stand on a table and do a weird little dance or sing the cheesiest song on the current pop charts. He'd wake up not remembering any of it.

Three.

That wasn't what was actually happening, of course.

Two.

But it didn't seem that far off, considering how sleepy he felt and just how physically exhausted he was.

One.

As he drifted off, he leaned over to the right, his head resting against the window as his eyes closed completely.

Zero.

* * *

Yamaguchi jolted awake when the bus went over a bump in the highway and his head slammed against the window. It wasn't very hard, but it was enough to wake him up.

When he bounced up out of his seat, he felt something on his shoulder that he hadn’t noticed before. It had probably been there before, but when he was asleep, he didn’t feel it.

Once he turned to look over his shoulder at what it was, he sucked in a breath when he realized that it was Tsukishima, who was still fast asleep with his head resting on Yamaguchi’s shoulder. He had somehow moved from just sitting in the seat to lying sideways across it, with his feet sticking out into the aisle.

Yamaguchi tried to close his eyes again and get back to sleep; he was so tired that he thought it would be easy. But at the exact moment he shut his eyes, the bus turned a corner, sending Yamaguchi abruptly leaning in towards the aisle, and Tsukishima along with him.

As Tsukishima almost fell out of the seat into the aisle, Yamaguchi swore he tried not to laugh. But that didn’t work, and within around two seconds, he was giggling like a little kid.

But if he was still able to hold in his uncontrollable laughter when Tsukishima landed in the aisle, he definitely wouldn’t have been able to last when he actually woke up.

After Tsukishima practically slid off the edge of the seat and landed in the middle of the aisleway, probably still asleep and completely unaware of what was going on, he slowly cracked his eyes open as he sat up, looking around in a half-daze. This lasted for a few seconds before he blinked a few times, snapping himself back to reality. His eyes widened for a quick second as he realized exactly where he was and he half-glared at Yamaguchi, who was pressed up against the window giggling while trying to not make any noise, which was pretty hard, if not impossible to pull off.

“Do you have any idea how I ended up on the floor?” Tsukishima asked, getting back up into his seat.

Yamaguchi practically snorted. "The bus turned a corner and you pretty much just fell out of your seat."

Tsukishima rolled his eyes, digging his phone out of his bag as he sat back in his seat. As the screen lit up, he unlocked the phone and tapped the screen a few times before just looking at it for a minute or so. After a minute or so, the expression on his face turned from nonchalance to surprise before finally settling on slight disgust.

"What are you looking at, Tsukki?" Yamaguchi asked, leaning over to get a better look at the screen.

"Checking to see if any articles are up about this yet." Tsukishima frowned as he scrolled through a page of search results. "I kind of want to know what people thought about all this."

He stopped to look at one particular article, opening the page and reading it for a minute. As he read, his eyes slowly narrowed until he looked like he could glare a hole right through the phone. Still, he didn't say anything, leaving the bus in complete silence.

"Are you serious?" He eventually asked as he turned off the phone and looked up at the ceiling. "Why do people keep doing that?"

"Doing what?" Yamaguchi asked.

"What do you think?"

Yamaguchi was confused for a second before he realized what he meant. All this was probably the same as it always was after everything: complaining about all the things he hadn't done. He frowned, looking down at his knees as the bus went over another bump. "Um, can I read it?"

Tsukishima paused for a second. "I guess so, although I have no idea why you'd ever want to."

"I just want to see what they're complaining about this time."

"Honestly, it isn't going to be worth your time. It's not even actual news, it’s just someone ranting on their blog or something. But here." Tsukishima handed over the phone, which was still turned off."

"Thanks." Yamaguchi pushed the power button, and once the screen lit up, he was met with Tsukishima's lock screen. "Um, Tsukki?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't know your passcode."

"It's my birthday. Zero-nine-two-seven."

"Oh." Yamaguchi punched in the four-digit code and the screen went white when the article opened.

"Can I say something first?" Tsukishima asked.

"Yeah." Yamaguchi set the phone down on his lap and looked over at him.

"Taking something like this at face value is probably the worst thing you could do right now."

"Hm?"

"That sounded really stupid when I actually said it, but you get it, right?" Tsukishima shrugged, looking back up at the ceiling as he tapped his foot on the floor. "The articles never really tell the whole story."

"Yeah." Yamaguchi nodded, turning his attention back to the phone, reading the article intensely.

The headline read "End of Miyagi Duo Hiatus: Aka's Back in Full Swing, Midori's Still Adjusting". Of course. The headlines rarely said something different than that. Yamaguchi's face fell as he realized that things hadn't changed after all.

The article itself was the same as the articles always were. But because of the hiatus, they were possibly even more harsh than usual.

Yamaguchi gulped, preparing himself for the worst as his eyes ran over the words on the page.

"As the saying goes, history often repeats itself,” Yamaguchi whispered, reading the article out loud, “And while we all hoped it wouldn’t be true on a day like today, it sadly, but unpredictably, was. For those of you who don’t know or didn’t read the headline, the Miyagi Duo hiatus ended just over two hours ago. And for something that was supposed to symbolize triumph over whatever inner demons those two happened to be fighting, it was surprisingly typical. And nowhere was this more true than the roles played by the two heroes, now called Aka and Midori by their loyal, country-spanning fanbase.

“This is largely the same phenomenon that we’ve been seeing time and time again since the current Duo began their stint in late March,” he continued, “While Aka is the trademark hero of the team, Midori spends most of his time in the shadows of the action. Despite the utter importance of the hiatus ending, today was just another typical day where that was concerned. It makes one wonder what exactly Midori has to offer to the Duo, if there is anything at all. And the only thing that I got out of today was that that is a highly plausible option.”

Yamaguchi stopped reading, skimming over the rest of the article in a few seconds until he stopped right in the middle. In the middle of the article, in the middle of a paragraph, in the middle of a _sentence_. Because the word that he’d been trying so hard to avoid seeing ever again was staring him right in the face, right in the center where he could see it clearly: useless.

He didn’t bother reading the sentence containing it. He didn’t need to. Just the word itself was enough to stop him from reading the rest.

But he still stared at the phone screen in front of him, with the word illuminated clearly right in the middle of it. He wanted to just turn the damn thing off, and try to forget that he’d ever seen this, but at the same time he was frozen, in awe of just how horribly his plan had backfired.

“Yamaguchi?” Tsukishima snapped his fingers in front of Yamaguchi’s face a few times.

“Yeah?"

“Are you okay?’

Yamaguchi didn’t answer the question directly, instead just choosing to lean his head against the window. “I tried to stop this.”

“I know.”

“That was the only reason I tried to do this on my own.” Yamaguchi was trying to hold back tears, trying his hardest not to break entirely. “And no one even noticed.”

“I know.” That was all that Tsukishima said. It wasn’t much, but it was somehow enough.

They sat there in silence for a while after that, during which Yamaguchi just stared out the window and tried to focus on what was going on outside. Being between cities, the bus traveled through a sea of greens and yellows with the blue sky up above dotted with white clouds here and there. When he was younger, he  used to spend hours staring up at the clouds and trying to figure out what they were shaped like. But now, he was fine just looking at them.

It stayed like this for a long time. Neither of them said a word, choosing instead to look out at the world around them. But the silence wasn't a bad thing. It wasn't awkward, like it had been the last time they'd spent this long next to each other without talking about anything. They weren't saying anything because they didn't need to, not because they didn't _want_ to.

"That was impressive, though." Tsukishima broke the silence after a few minutes.

"Impressive?" Yamaguchi asked, turning away from the window.

"There isn't really a better word to describe it." Tsukishima shrugged. "If people had actually seen it, they'd be saying something completely different right now."

"That's the problem." Yamaguchi sighed. "No one saw it."

"I did. And it was good."

"Oh." Yamaguchi felt a blush seeping into his cheeks. "Thanks."

"Although..." Tsukishima smirked. "It would have been helpful if you hadn't almost gotten yourself killed at the end of it.”

“Tsukki!” Yamaguchi’s mouth fell open. “I didn’t know that was going to happen!”

“I know that,” Tsukishima said, “And we both know you did.”

“Okay, yeah.” Yamaguchi chuckled. “Are you going to tell me that you told me so now?”

“No, that’s tacky.” Tsukishima leaned back into the seat again. “I’m going back to sleep. Don’t look up any more bullshit articles, okay? Trust me, they’re all going to be dead wrong.”

“Okay.” Yamaguchi nodded, leaning back into his seat and looking up at the ceiling.

“I have a weird feeling that things are going to get a lot better after this,” Tsukishima said, closing his eyes.

“Yeah,” Yamaguchi said, “I hope so.”

After that, things fell silent again, this time for the rest of the bus ride. Despite the ever-constant bumps in the road, it wasn’t long before Yamaguchi drifted off again; he was still more tired than he thought he was. But once he closed his eyes, he let out the breath he felt like he’d been holding for the past week.

And it felt amazing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check me out on tumblr at either my writing blog [hanwritesstuff.tumblr.com](http://hanwritesstuff.tumblr.com) or my main blog [violinist-tsukki.tumblr.com](http://violinist-tsukki.tumblr.com) if you'd like! On my writing blog you can see my various shitposts about this fic under the "mitaosi" tag if that strikes your fancy.


	10. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is the last chapter. I'm not going to say much here because I'm going to get mushy at the end, but thank you to Lyss and Sarah as usual, and enjoy!
> 
> Edit: There's now a [fanmix](https://8tracks.com/kannaotrashcan/weightless) for this chapter that I made out of all the music I was listening to that wasn't classical! So you can enjoy that too if you'd like!

Yamaguchi could hear the camera flashes and sea of voices even before he entered the hotel ballroom. And as Tsukishima opened the door and led the way inside, the noise only got louder, and it seemed like a camera flashed every second.

They were leaving afternoon practice early for this, a Monday-night press conference an hour away from home to discuss what exactly happened on Friday and why the usually-on-top-of-it Miyagi Duo had been missing in action for a week prior to that, since no one outside the small group of people who had actually been there knew what was going on. Yamaguchi, of course, had been dreading it, especially since he'd seen the series of articles published over the weekend, and now, he was nervous beyond belief. He didn't know what kinds of questions these people would ask, or, more importantly, if he'd be able to answer them without automatically confirming their assumptions about him. It didn't help that he was wearing a button-down shirt, either, and the collar seemed to suffocate him even more than usual.

But he knew this was coming. Right when he’d gotten home on Friday, he realized that neither he nor Tsukishima had even thought about answering any questions, even with the unusually large number of reporters on the scene. At the time, there were much more important circumstances to attend to, but once that was over, Yamaguchi knew something like this was imminent, especially after the hiatus that scared everyone half to death.

As Yamaguchi sat down in the rickety brown folding chair in front of the equally rickety table, he realized just how many people there were. There must have been at least a hundred, and he couldn’t even count the number of cameras and microphones he saw.

And, being in a hotel ballroom, there had to be a stage where the musicians would play when there was dancing here, if that had ever happened. And even though the stage-like platform wasn’t very high off the ground, he was still sitting on top of it, which made things even worse.

When he least expected it, every camera in the room flashed at once, almost blinding him in the process. After the bright spots in his vision cleared, everyone began to get quiet as every pair of eyes in the room seemed to focus right on him.

“Good afternoon, everyone.” The woman standing in front of the stage was someone whose name Yamaguchi probably knew at some point, but he had completely forgotten it by now. “Thank you all for coming out here tonight.”

As she kept giving her introduction, Yamaguchi went over what exactly he was supposed to do. After the introduction, he and Tsukishima would give a sort of speech about what happened over the past week, with Tsukishima thankfully doing the brunt of the talking. After that, there was time for questions from the hundred reporters who had showed up, and then it would be over, not taking much more than a half-hour.

Two minutes before they were supposed to go on, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi had been given a crash course on what exactly to expect from the interviews from the woman on the floor, who happened to be the Miyagi Duo's "agent", a friend of Yamaguchi's parents who'd worked with them back when they had the job. She had told the current duo a list of questions that would probably be asked, and exactly how to answer them. No "um"s or "ah"s or long pauses, tell the truth even if you don't know something, and don't look nervous.

Yeah, like Yamaguchi could look calm and collected at a time like this.

Of course, Tsukishima could do that easily. He was ridiculously good at staying calm under pressure and making it look like nothing was wrong. It was just one of the many traits of his that Yamaguchi was hopelessly jealous of.

"After the speech, we're going to go straight into questions, so I ask that if you have one, please raise your hand and someone will get you a mic. There's a limited amount of time for questions, so please keep them on topic, and if your questions aren't answered, there's contact information on the sheet we handed out if you want to schedule individual interviews." She turned so she was looking up at Tsukishima and Yamaguchi on the stage. "I think that's all for me, so I'm going to hand it over."

Yamaguchi paled. Why had he volunteered to start this whole thing?

"Um, hello!" He'd broken a rule already, and he wasn't even surprised. "My name's Midori, this is Aka, and we're the Miyagi Duo. Thank you again for coming tonight!" He was nervous beyond belief, and probably everyone else in the room could tell.

"Before we answer your questions, we're going to say a few words about ourselves and the events that took place last week," Tsukishima said, "So please try to bear with us for these few minutes." He didn't sound nervous at all; he somehow managed to keep his voice sounding relatively normal, without speeding up or changing pitch or anything, and Yamaguchi had no idea how he did it.

“Probably the main reason most of you are here is because of the hiatus last week,”  Tsukishima continued, barely skipping a beat, “Which, as far as I know, is completely unprecedented, and completely unexplained and sudden. We would like to apologize for the lack of professionalism and the potential impact this would have had on a great number of people.”

Yeah, Yamaguchi was really glad he wasn’t doing the talking.

“However.” Tsukishima’s eyes narrowed. “Despite the relative lack of experience we currently have, there are legitimate reasons for the disappearance that we hope you’ll understand.”

After that, he started talking about the various ideas that he’d probably prepared as soon as he knew this was happening, telling a small lie about why the hiatus had happened and saying it was due to an injury from the previous week. Telling the truth here would have been disastrous; if people knew that de-powering, as it were, was even possible, the entire country could go into a frenzy in the blink of an eye. Yamaguchi would have thought it sounded completely brilliant if he hadn’t stopped listening a minute or so in, not because he was bored, but because Tsukishima just had that kind of voice, the soothing kind that you could listen to for hours. It was weird hearing it at all, since he wasn't exactly a chatty person and he never spoke up in class, but to most of the people here, who had probably never heard his voice before this, he would have seemed like a natural at this whole public speaking thing. He didn't speak too fast or too slow, and his word choice made him seem more like a college student than someone who had only started high school a few months ago.

When he eventually stopped talking a few minutes later, it took far too long for everyone else to realize it, leaving the room in a slightly eerie but mostly calm silence once the speech was finished.

"Oh, um, thank you very much!" The woman on the floor grinned up at them, mouthing a quick "nice job!" in their direction before turning back to the crowd. "Alright, so now, we have a little bit of time for questions. Remember, if you want to ask one, please raise your hand and we'll get you a mic."

Every hand in the room seemed to shoot at once, like this was a first-grade classroom. The reporters looked up from their laptops, trying to get their voices heard.

"How about right here on the front left?" The woman took the microphone across the room to a woman with a bob of brown hair.

"What are you planning in the future to make sure a crisis like this doesn't happen again?" She asked, placing her fingers on the keyboard in preparation for typing out the answer.

"If an injury or something like that comes up in the future," Tsukishima said, pausing for a second to think before he started talking again, "I think that at this point, we're both at a high enough level to go out on our own if need be."

The woman nodded, giving the microphone back to the moderator as she furiously typed out the response. The moderator walked over to a reporter in the back, a middle-aged man with slightly graying black hair.

"Was there more to what happened on Friday afternoon than what was showed on the security footage?"

"Yes, actually." Yamaguchi found himself butting in, but this was a question he didn't mind answering. "The majority of the fight was inside the building, and by the time we had gotten to the roof, there was only a little bit left to do."

The man nodded, and the mic went around the room to the next reporter and the next question.

"Why didn't you let people know about the hiatus?"

"Who were the people on the roof with you?"

"Why did you not answer questions directly after everything finished on Friday?"

They were all questions that Tsukishima had no trouble answering, so Yamaguchi eventually just zoned out, barely listening to the exchange of questions and answers and instead focusing on the steadily ticking clock at the back of the room.

Thankfully, no one had asked any questions specifically geared towards him as of yet. If they had, he probably wouldn't know what to say and would just end up humiliating himself. That was the one reason he was thankful to have a secret identity: if he screwed up - which he did a lot more than he wanted to - practically no one would know it was him.

"Midori-kun?"

The female voice was the one that snapped him out of his stream of thought and brought him back to the reality of the situation. A young reporter was staring up at him from the second row, holding the microphone in her hand.

"What's your opinion on the recent backlash against you?" She asked.

"What kind of question even is that?" Tsukishima mumbled to himself, crossing his arms as he sat back in his chair.

"Well…" Yamaguchi paused. How was he even supposed to answer this? Was it simply a matter of saying that he agreed or disagreed, or was she looking for something more than that? And if he did pick a side, he'd essentially be backing himself into a corner. If he disagreed, he'd sound arrogant and pretentious, but if he agreed, he'd sound submissive and even more wimpy than people already thought he was. There wasn't a right answer, and yet, he had to pick one.

And which side did he even agree with? He wanted to disagree, say that he didn't deserve everything that people had thrown at him since March, but was that really true? It was true that he hadn't done much for the Duo's sake, but someone like Suga probably would have said he was contributing in his own special way. But what even was that "special way"? Moral support? What use was that when you were constantly expected to do more?

He felt like the rope in a game of tug-of-war, being pulled from one side to the other. Just when he was about to reach the tipping point of one side, the other side would pull him back and the entire thing would start over again.

But if he really had to choose a side, he already knew which one he would pick.

"I…" He paused, not quite knowing how to word it. "I understand why it's happening. I don't see any reason why people wouldn't be doing it, since it's true that I don't put myself out there very often. If I'm expected to be out there saving the world all the time, I understand that people are going to try to point it out when it doesn't look like I am. But as for my opinion on the matter…"

He could still back out of this. He could say something entirely different than what he thought he would and completely change the direction of this interview.

But he'd been told to tell the truth, and that was what he was going to do.

"I don't disagree with it." Yamaguchi looked down at the pattern of flowers on the tablecloth, not wanting to say any more.

"Well, I guess that's all the time we have for questions!" The moderator sounded chipper as ever when she butted in after a few seconds of silence, even though there was a hint of nervousness in her voice. "If you want to schedule individual interviews, there's contact information in the packet that we gave you earlier! Thank you for coming!"

Some of the reporters in the crowd groaned at their lack of answers, but most of them started packing up without much comment, taking their attention off the stage.

"I don't know about you," Tsukishima whispered, "But I really need some fresh air before spending another hour in your mom's stuffy car."

"Yeah." Yamaguchi nodded, and the two of them walked off the stage and out through a door behind it, where things were much quieter.

"Can you go ask your mom if we can have a few minutes before we go?" Tsukishima asked, taking his phone out of his bag, "It seems kind of anticlimactic to just stay here for a half hour."

"I saw a Starbucks when we were driving in." Yamaguchi shrugged. "I think I have a little money."

"Not exactly in the mood for coffee right now." Tsukishima picked up his bag, placing his phone back in.

"Yeah, me neither." Yamaguchi chuckled. Picking up his phone, he sent out a quick text to his mom, who had spent the conference grocery shopping. After asking her for fifteen minutes of extra time, she agreed, only requesting that they meet her in front of the hotel when they were done.

"You both did great!" The moderator lady walked in, a grin widely spread across her face. "For your first conference, you sounded like experts!"

"Thanks," Tsukishima said, looking at the door to the hotel lobby.

"You two have to head out, don't you?" She asked, "I'm sure we'll meet up again sometime."

"Thanks for helping us with this." Yamaguchi smiled, hoping it didn't look as forced as it felt.

"No problem." The moderator smiled back. "Have a great evening!"

After nodding his thanks, Yamaguchi followed Tsukishima out the door into the lobby of the hotel, but instead of walking towards the exit, they walked down a hallway towards the stairs.

"Tsukki, what are you doing?" Yamaguchi asked, "The exit's that way."

"Shut up, Yamaguchi." Tsukishima rolled his eyes as he opened the door to the stairwell. "I know what I'm doing."

"Okay." Yamaguchi tentatively nodded, following him up the stairs. Before Tsukishima broke into a run, and Yamaguchi found himself struggling to keep up. "Tsukki!"

"I'm not going to waste time walking up stairs when there's more important things to do." Tsukishima briefly turned around before he continued running up the stairs.

They kept climbing, faster than Yamaguchi had really ever gone before. And the flights of stairs seemed to go on forever as the two of them climbed up to the fifth floor, the seventh, the tenth. It wasn't until the fifteenth floor, the top floor of the hotel, that Tsukishima briefly stopped, pausing for a second before he ran up another flight of stairs that seemed to lead to nowhere but the ceiling. Which soon proved to not be the case, when he grabbed a handle in the ceiling that Yamaguchi could barely see and yanked it down, revealing a ladder leading up a hatch into darkness.

Following him up the ladder, Yamaguchi soon realized that it led to the roof, and that it wasn't dark at all. Once he got up there and Tsukishima shut the hatch again, he realized that he was right in the middle of the sunset, that cast a spell of reds, pinks, and yellows over the horizon. Down on the street below, a line of cars stretched out for miles beyond the taller buildings. It was beautiful, not to mention it was a lot quieter than the lower floors had been earlier.

“Okay, you have a lot of explaining to do.” Tsukishima crossed his arms and frowned.

“Hm?” Yamaguchi asked.

“You don’t actually believe these idiots, don’t you?”

“Huh?” Yamaguchi probably knew what he was talking about, but he really wanted to play it safe here, just for the sake of not bursting into tears on the spot.

“That one question at the end,” Tsukishima said, “You said you didn’t disagree with the backlash and everything. Were you being serious?”

“I don’t know.” Yamaguchi sighed. “I know I shouldn’t believe what people are saying, but...” He looked down at the ground, his voice getting a hundred times quieter. “It’s not like I really do much.”

“Bullshit.”

“What?”

“It’s bullshit.” Tsukishima smirked. “I don’t know what it’s going to take to make you believe it, so if you have any ideas, now would be a good time to put them out there.”

Yamaguchi just shrugged.

“Things are going to change, you know,” Tsukishima said, “This is going to be the last time you get the really stupid questions like that.”

“How do you know?”

“Didn’t I tell you this on Friday?”

Yamaguchi let himself smile the smallest bit. “Yeah, I guess you did.”

“Exactly."

There was a second of silence, that didn't really need to be filled.

"I don't think that people realize this," Tsukishima said, "But none of this would be the way it is without you.”

Yamaguchi’s cheeks were probably red already from the cold air up on the roof, but somehow, he blushed even more than that. “What?” He couldn’t count the number of times he’d said that recently, but it seemed that every instance was completely worth it.

“That sounds really stupid, but...” Tsukishima shrugged. “I don’t really know how else to say it.”

“You were nailing the whole public speaking thing a few minutes ago!" Yamaguchi giggled.

"Yeah, but that's different. I planned that out a day in advance, I knew exactly what I was going to say."

"Okay, true."

"But, about this…" Tsukishima's eyes narrowed as he looked out at the view. "I don't think this as simple as people make it out to be." He paused for a second before he continued, a smirk appearing on his face. "If Friday told me anything, it's that no one's giving you enough credit. I'm not condoning almost killing yourself because of it, but it really says something about someone when they pass out from power exhaustion twice in one week."

Yamaguchi's eyes widened as he abruptly turned away to look at the sky some more. It was getting darker, and when he looked up, everything was in different shades of indigo.

Everything was silent for a little while after that, leaving him to think about everything that had just happened. All things considered, Tsukishima was probably right. Even though the consequences had been particularly terrifying, Yamaguchi had still worked harder than he ever had before, and he would do it again in a heartbeat if he needed to. But still, he felt like even his utmost effort wasn't enough to be noticed, and it would probably take years to get up to a level where it would be. Years of the same criticisms he'd gotten in the past few months. And while that sounded like hell, it didn't seem like there was really another option, at least at the time.

"Can I do something stupid?" Tsukishima asked, breaking the silence.

Yamaguchi shrugged. "I guess so."

Tsukishima nodded, reaching up behind his head to take his mask off before he dropped it on the ground next to him. He took a deep breath, looking up at the sky while mumbling something to himself that sounded like "this is such a bad idea".

For a few seconds, the two of them just stood there, looking into each other's eyes as the sky around them got ever darker. A car horn sounded from the street below, but it didn't manage to divert their attention. They were only a few inches apart at this point, and the only thing they could really focus on was each other.

And when Tsukishima leaned in even further and softly pressed his lips to Yamaguchi's, Yamaguchi's entire world pretty much stopped.

It didn't last long, though; even though it felt like an eternity, it was probably only a second or two before Tsukishima abruptly pulled away, eyes wide.

"Why the hell did I do that?" He asked, probably to himself. While he was scowling like he was often prone to do, his cheeks were beet red.

Yamaguchi only giggled. It wasn't very often that he saw his best friend completely flustered and embarrassed like that, and it was hilarious to watch.

"Shut _up_ , Yamaguchi!" Tsukishima quickly turned his head to look out at the view. He was still blushing profusely, not even daring to make eye contact.

"Sorry, Tsukki!" Yamaguchi giggled even more, mostly because he couldn't help it.

Tsukishima glared at him. For once, there was no way that Yamaguchi could take it seriously.

"Actually…" Yamaguchi smiled. "I kind of want time to stop again." That was hopelessly poetic and dumb, and the words really just poured out of his mouth without him really thinking about it, but he didn't really mind.

"What are you talking about?" Tsukishima asked, raising one eyebrow.

Yamaguchi froze for a quick second. Was he really going to go through with this?

Yes. Yes, he was.

He smiled again before he leaned in ever closer, practically smashing his lips against Tsukishima's in a single motion. They stared at each other for a second, eyes wide in surprise, before Yamaguchi closed his eyes and tried to just roll with whatever this tried to throw at him.

Which, after a few seconds, turned out to be not very much. As far as first kisses went, this one was a lot smoother than he expected it to be. Sure, it started out rough - they weren't expecting their noses to bump into each other, even though that was clearly how the human body worked - but after they got around that, it was almost ridiculously easy. After a while, they almost seemed to melt into each other, feeling more like one unit as opposed to two separate people.

When Tsukishima reached around and put his hand right behind Yamaguchi's head, Yamaguchi didn't object, almost leaning into it. After a little bit, he responded by wrapping his arms around Tsukishima's shoulders, bringing them even closer together than they already were, if that was even possible.

Yamaguchi couldn't stop thinking about how cheesy all this was. The entire thing played out like one of those dumb romance movies, but this wasn't happening inside a theater - this was real life. This wasn't two actors memorizing a script, this was two not-so-normal teenagers kissing - his stomach flip-flopped when he actually recognized that as a legitimate description - on a hotel rooftop under the twilight sky. This could have been filmed and put on the silver screen, and people would think it was fiction, but no, it was _actually happening_.

And he absolutely loved it.

Yamaguchi hadn't quite expected his uncontrollable superpowers to kick in at a time like this, but when he did, he couldn't say he was surprised. He probably only lifted a few inches off the ground, leaving his feet dangling back down, pulled by the unstoppable force of gravity. But things felt different when you couldn't feel the Earth under your feet, and he felt more free than he had possibly felt in his entire life.

He only realized that he had accidentally lifted Tsukishima up along with him when the two of them pulled away from each other.

They stared down at the ground below them - the ground they weren't standing on - before they looked up, locking eyes and creating a silence that stayed just that until Yamaguchi started laughing a minute later.

"I-it's probably been more than ten minutes by now." Yamaguchi grinned.

Tsukishima shrugged. "One more thing."

"Hm?"

"You're so much more than people say you are." Tsukishima gave a genuine smile for the first time in what was probably more than a year. "Remember that."

Yamaguchi outright beamed. "Okay!"

"Let's get out of here. I still have homework to do."

"Yeah, me too."

After that, things started to unwind. Yamaguchi slowly lowered the two of them back down to the ground and they carried on, walking back down the stairs of the hotel talking about school and whatnot. To the normal onlooker, it would have looked like nothing had happened. But Yamaguchi would probably never forget that something had.

Because even after he touched the ground again, he still felt weightless.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd recommend taking a few seconds between the ending and this, just to take it all in. I don't know.
> 
> Okay! Anyway. First off, thank you guys so much for sticking with me through these almost-four months. I loved reading your comments and hearing what you thought of this, and I hope you all liked it as much as I did. While there were definitely sad parts for me to write, as well as some bits that were utterly frustrating (chapter seven, anyone?), I overall just loved the process so much. Honestly, I can't believe this is actually over, and I spent so much time on this that I'm totally planning on coming back to this AU sometime, whether for a full-blown sequel or just some drabbles in MD-verse. Because I'm clingy and I can't let go of my baby. But before I do that, I'm going to write stuff for the HQ exchanges I'm doing for the holidays, and then I have another huge and immersive AU I want to start (those of you who started following me on [tumblr](http://violinist-tsukki.tumblr.com) (hint) a while back might be particularly interested in this one!), but I'm still up and kicking in fic-land. Once again, thank you guys so much and I'll be back soon, I promise! ([Quick link to my writing blog](http://hanwritesstuff.tumblr.com) because I'm trash like that) If you guys want to chat, my ask on both of the blogs I linked to is open if you're so inclined! Thanks, and I'll see you all soon-ish!


End file.
